


don’t take the money

by aryasbadbenergy



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 90s gendrya, Blood, F/M, Fight Club - Freeform, Fighter, Fighting, Fingering, Gendrya - Freeform, Journalism, Oral, Smut, Violence, angst fest, club fighting, gendrya au, gendrya smut, i am a heathen and tagging this hurts my relationship with god oh boy, i literally created this plot for all of the smut i wrote there’s a lot of smut, lots of swearing, modern gendrya, ned stark is nobody’s dad, only arya and jon are related, ooc gendrya bc this is set in 1991, ramsay is going to be significantly mellower in this than in the show but i still hate him, so im sorry or you’re welcome depending on how you feel about that, you’ve been warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-01-16 06:11:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 40,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18515518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aryasbadbenergy/pseuds/aryasbadbenergy
Summary: when Arya is supposed to write an article on the underground fight club in 1991 Chicago, she never expects to catch the attention of the infamous “the Bull”((named for the song by Bleachers!!))





	1. i’m so sorry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> arya is given a new assignment and meets a mysterious man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> new fic!! this is set in the early 90s and i hope y’all enjoy!! if you’re reading this because you really like “jilted lovers and broken hearts” it’s v different but i hope you still like it!! ((since this is a club fighter fic, there is going to be quite a bit of blood and violence so I am warning you now!))

 

**No lies and no deceiving, that is what he loves**

**I keep tryin' to conceive that death is from above**   
**No time**   
**I get by and make no excuses waste of precious breath**   
**No time**   
**The sun shines on everyone, everyone love yourself to death**

**So you gotta fire up, you gotta let go**   
**You'll never be loved till you've made your own**   
**You gotta face up, you gotta get yours**   
**You never know the top till you get too low**

**A son of a stepfather**   
**A son of a**   
**I'm so sorry**   
**A son of a stepfather**   
**A son of a**   
**I'm so sorry**

 

**I’m So Sorry ~ Imagine Dragons**

"That's it? That's all I have to say?" Arya raises her eyebrows at her manager.

Ramsay nods. "They might let you back in without it, but you better fucking know it. If you screw this up, then the team is done," he hisses. Arya rolls her eyes when he turns away from her. He’s such a prick.

"Mr. Stark has faith in me," Arya says. “He said the _Stark Journal_ would benefit from my insight.” Arya feels childish for hanging that compliment over Ramsay’s head, but it was better than punching him in the face every time he insulted her.

"Don't know why," Ramsay mumbles. Arya bites her tongue and steps out of the office.

Her team had been working for months to get information on the fight club before the _Golden Lion Gazette_ , but they were struggling. The fight club was supposed to be a secret—even though half of the city knew about it—and anyone who could talk, wouldn't. The team wasn't stupid. They weren't going to publish any information that could lead the police to the club and risk losing their source, but anyone who knew anything didn't want to take the fall if the police found them anyway. Talking to a journalist could very well get them killed, depending on who was running the club. She intended to find that out, even if the name was something she kept for herself. She suggested sending an undercover journalist last week, and Ned Stark loved the idea so much that she got to be the one to execute it.

At around eleven, Arya heads to the bar Ramsay had told her about this morning. It was a smart location, the outside looked exactly a regular bar, and the path to the back of the building led to a small garage where product was delivered through the back door. But she knew it led down into the basement where the fights would happen later tonight.

She spends her time before the fights observing the inside of the bar and makes a note to write down what time it closes. The owners start filtering everyone out around midnight, but if you come around the back and you know the right words, you can get into the basement. Arya hesitates a little, but she repeats the words and pays the amount Ramsay had told her this morning when she was given the assignment.

She's welcomed into the club without more than a glance and she goes up to the bar to get a virgin drink. She couldn't drink on the job, but she still needed to look like she fit here. She had put on a small skirt that she wasn't too fond of and a button up top of her coworker, Sansa's. Most of the women around her are wearing jeans, and very few of them are dressed up like she is, and she feels a little out of place already. She didn’t know what to expect for tonight because she was one of the two people on her team that had never been to the club before, but Sansa had tried to help her as best as she could.

Arya waits as most of the lights in the basement shut off and a spotlight shines on a small pit, with a ring drawn in what looks like chalk. She almost laughs that chalk was used, but she steels her face. Two women who looked like they were around Arya's age step out of the crowd, clad in boxing shorts and tank tops. No gloves. Arya grimaces a little, knowing how much it hurt to box when she was younger with gloves, and didn't want to know what it was like without them.

A man that looks like a makeshift referee steps into the ring with them and shouts off the rules. "No biting, no scratching, no kicking when they're down. First one to tap out loses."

Arya wants to be a little shocked at the sheer amount of rules, but she isn’t sure why she would have expected better when the ring was drawn in chalk.

"Ladies... fight!"

He steps out of the ring and the girl in the green lurches forward. She almost lands a punch, but the girl in red sidesteps and punches Green in the head.

Arya’s brother had been into horror and gore films when they were younger, so she wasn’t as fazed by violence as her other coworkers. Well, she didn’t know Ramsay very well, but she felt that if he had the opportunity to watch young girls punch each other and get paid for it, he would probably enjoy his job a little too much.

Arya watches intently as Red punches Green again, not even struggling to avoid Green's punches. Arya winces as blood sprays from Green's mouth and she falls to the floor with a kick to the legs. Red continues to lay into her while she's on the ground and everyone else in the crowd cheers. Green punches Red upside the jaw, and Red is shocked enough by the hit that Green is able to stand back up. She spits more blood and punches Red in the face again. Red's nose starts bleeding, but she wipes the blood on her shirt and stands before she lurches for Green. Green wrestles Red to the ground and Arya feels a little guilty for thinking the sight looks a little Christmas-y. Green pins Red with one arm on her neck and punches her in the head again. Red tries to punch Green, but she can't reach her arm around Green. She taps the side of the ground and Green lets go of her. Green stands to cheer and pumps her fists in the air. The ref holds up Green's fist and shouts that she won the fight. Green offers a hand to Red and helps her up.

People around Arya collect on their bets and Arya tries to pay attention to all of it. A man sitting by the edge of the ring patches up the girls and someone wipes the blood off the floor before two more women step into the ring. They fight for only a minute because one girl kicks the other after she fell, and she gets pulled from the ring. The other girl wins by default and Arya realizes it was going to be harder to remember to write everything down later when she was used to being able to write anything down as it was said or as it happened. She would need to ask for something to record voices so she could focus on the atmosphere just as much as the conversations. She knew the company had a few microcassette recorders somewhere.

Two men step into the ring. They fight in only shorts, but they're both wearing black, so Arya chooses to identify one by the amount of tattoos he has. The other man doesn't look like he has more than two or three, but the other one was covered. He had a few bruises on his face and back, probably from fighting less than a few days ago, and they are told the same rules. The tattooed man lands a punch easily, and another before he blocks a blow. The muscles in his back and shoulders ripple with each punch, and Arya feels bad for the other guy he's fighting. They're about the same size, but the tattooed one looked older, and Arya assumed he had been fighting for a while based on the skill he blocks hits with. He misses a block, and he gets hit in the nose. Blood runs down his face, but he doesn't pay any attention to it as he hits the other guy in the face. Their punches get slower and slower until the younger boy gets knocked to the ground. He tries to stand, but his arms fall under him and he taps out.

The ref holds up his hand and yells that "the Bull" has won again, but the Bull keeps his head low, almost like he's ashamed to have won.

"I fucking told you, the Bull always wins," a man gloats off to Arya's side and collects money from another man.

"I thought that I might get lucky since he was fighting Thunder.” Arya takes a moment to reel about how stupid their stage names were, but she knows she has to move on and stay focused. “Ease up will ya? My wife said I gotta stop coming to this fucking place 'fore I gamble all our money away," the losing man mutters and hands the other man two hundred dollar bills. Arya grimaces a little at his loss, but if he had seen the Bull fight before and he had fought anything like he did tonight, then the man was stupid for thinking someone might get the better of him. She waits a few minutes for another fight, but she realizes she should take any time she has now to write some notes for herself before she misses the next fight. She can’t see very well at the bar top, but she notices the little lighting in the the hallway. The jeering from the crowd was unmistakable for anything else that could happen in the basement, so she’d know when another fight was starting once she’d stepped out.

Arya steps out into the hallway with her napkin and digs around in her purse for a pen. She starts to write as many indecipherable (only to other people) notes for herself as she can. She hears someone else in the hallway and shoves the napkin into her pocket. She turns to the sound of the footsteps and makes eye contact with the guy who leans against the wall. He raises his eyebrows at her and pulls a cigarette up to his mouth. It was still dark in the hallway, but he looked like the Bull. He was wearing a shirt now, but she could still see the tattoos on his arms before he pulls a leather jacket on. It’s frayed at the wrists, and worn around his shoulders, but it fits him nicely. His lip was freshly split, and he had a few new bruises on his face, but his nosebleed had stopped. She realizes that she can't just stare at him for forever, but she doesn't want to go in without talking to him after they've made eye contact. And she might be able to trick some information out of him. She couldn’t imagine that countless punches to the head left a person very smart.

"Can I bum a smoke?" She asks. Arya had smoked a few times in high school and college, but she never really enjoyed it. She couldn't just stand here with him, though. He hands her a cigarette and she sticks it between her lips before leaning forward for him to light it. He cups the cigarette a little and his hand brushes against her lips. It was cold in the hallway—not that Arya really minded having grown up farther North—but his hands were surprisingly warm. "Thanks," she murmurs when he steps away. He nods a little and she breathes in the smoke. It burned her throat, but she was able hold back a cough successfully.

"What's yer name?" He asks. His voice is gruff and he shifts to lean against the wall again.

Arya hesitates. She never thought about not being able to use her real name. "Jeyne," she finally says, using the name of a girl she worked at her second job with.

"Jeyne," he says, slowly. Almost like he’s testing the name in his mouth. Arya tries not to think too much about his mouth. "Ya sure?"

"I think I would know my own name. What's yours?" He shrugs. "Hey! I told you my name, that's not fair!" He gives her a little smile that makes his eyes seem brighter.

"I have-ta get back. Enjoy my cigarette."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((when i started this fic i was @ desolatemind, but now i’m under the name @aryasbadbenergy))


	2. a thousand times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> arya meets the bull at her side job

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> making moodboards got a lot harder than i thought it was gonna be and i couldnt find another picture i liked so i had to write that note myself and everyone says my handwriting is bad but i tried to make it worse and it just looks the same but oh well

 

**I left my room on the west side  
I walked from noon until the night  
I changed my crowd, I ditched my tie  
I watched the sparks fly off the fire  
I found your house, I didn't even try  
They'd closed the shutters, they'd pulled the blinds  
My eyes were red, the streets were bright  
Those ancient years were black and white**

**The 10th of November, the year's almost over  
If I had your number, I'd call you tomorrow  
If my eyes were open, I'd be kicking the doors in  
But all that I have is this old dream I've always had**

**A thousand times, a thousand times  
I've had that dream a thousand times  
A thousand times, a thousand times  
I've had that dream a thousand times**

**A 1000 Times ~ Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam**

Arya doesn't wake up until ten the next day, which she hates. She didn't mind sleeping in sometimes, but she needed to go to the diner where she worked a few days of the week late tonight, and now she just feels like she's wasted her time off. It was a Saturday, so she didn't work at the office, but she wanted to get some of her piece done while last night was still fresh in her mind.

She finds the crumpled napkin in the pocket of her discarded skirt and tries to type everything from last night, but she knows she probably forgot a few things. She's only able to get a paragraph written and she groans. She was good at remembering information for her pieces, which made journalism a little easier for her than some, but she had grown used to being able to write information down as soon as she saw or heard it.

She needed to go back again and try to gather more on the betting. Nobody would be at the office today, so she couldn't ask for a tape recorder until Monday morning, and who knew how long it would be before she actually got one from Ramsey since he seemed hell-bent on ruining her piece. They had to get it before the stupid _Golden_ _Lion_ _Gazette_ did, and sabotaging Arya would hurt Ramsay just as much as her. If they didn't get the club piece before their competition people would move away from the Stark Journal and they would all lose out on money. She was trying to quit working at the diner and she had been promised a bonus if she finished this piece in time, but at this rate she was worried that it would take her weeks.

* * *

"What happened to you? You punch a wall or something?" Shireen teases a customer later that night. Or early the next morning. Arya didn't care much for time technicalities since the diner was open for an ungodly twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

Arya sees the man puts his fist under the countertop. "Or something," he says and looks up. Arya makes eye contact with him and almost drops the coffee pot she's holding. The Bull furrows his eyebrows as he stares at her.

"Hi Jeyne," he finally says and waves a little.

Arya waves back before she pretends like she's looking for something  in her pockets. She turns around to walk into the kitchen and unclips her name tag once the door closes. Thankfully, the real Jeyne is about to leave the kitchen with a stack of pancakes and Arya catches her before she can. “Jeyne," she begs. "Can I borrow your name tag?"

"Why?" Jeyne raises her eyebrows.

"Please. I'll give it right back, but that guy thinks my name is Jeyne because of my _Stark Journal_ piece."

Jeyne peers past Arya through the small window. "He's cute," she observes and unclips her own tag. Arya trades name tags with her and walks back out into the diner, trying to ignore Jeyne's comment. He _is_ cute, but Arya couldn't think about that. She isn’t supposed to form any friendships with anyone there while she is working on the club piece so she doesn’t risk losing her cover.

“I thought I lost my notepad, but it was just in the kitchen," she lies, trying to explain why she ran off.

"Ah," he says as Shireen pours coffee into his empty cup. "I didn't know ya worked here."

Arya shrugs a little. "You probably just never noticed me before," she quips. "Do you want me to take him, Shireen?" She asks her coworker and Shireen gives her a small shrug and nod.

"I would have noticed ya," he assures.

Arya flits her eyebrows up in disbelief, but doesn't comment. "Did Shireen put your order in?"

He shakes his head. "I didn't order yet. Can I get the-" he starts to point to the item on the menu, but all Arya can see are the freshly scabbed black and blue knuckles on his right hand. She winces a little and the Bull looks up to her.

"Your hand looks broken," she says and he shrugs.

"It's fine."

"Can you make a fist?" He makes a loose fist with his hand and grimaces just barely.

"Yeah. It's just sore," he promises.

"You left handed?" She hopes.

"Right. But I can use my left hand fine," he gives her a small shrug.

Arya nods back and writes down his order before she turns on her heel and walks back to the kitchen.

She comes back out a few minutes later with his eggs and freezes when she sees him reading the _Stark Journal_. Arya sets the plate down in front of him and he sets the paper aside.

"Anything good today?" She teases, nodding at the newspaper with her head.

Gendry nods. "Anythin' in here is better than what's in the _Golden_ _Lion_ _Gazette_. I just can't bring myself to read somethin' with a name that ridiculous."

Arya smiles a little to herself. The name is ridiculous.“Mr. Stark always says the _Golden_ _Lion_ _Gazette_ would sell better if Tywin Lannister focused more on decent writing than their frivolous titles and reviews.” She freezes a little after she says that. She wasn’t used to having to lie about working at the _Stark Journal_. “Enjoy your meal,” she mumbles and walks back into the kitchen before the Bull can ask her any questions. She leans against the counter and groans internally for almost giving away too much. He’s pretty and it makes her word vomit—which is going to get really annoying—when she talks to him. As she got older she had learned to hold her tongue better, but she still struggled every once in a while.

“Ya gonna work today, Arry?” Lommy Greenhands grumbles from behind one of the fryers. “Or are you gonna keep coming in here to bother me?”

“I’m not bothering you,” she hisses. “I’m just waiting for more people to come in.”

“Ya can wait just fine out there. The new owner’s s'posed to come up here later and the first thing he’s gonna do is fire the lazy ones,” Lommy threatens and Arya rolls her eyes.

“Fine,” she throws up her hands and steps back out to check on her other tables. She avoids going back to the Bull except to refill his coffee once and to ask him if he needs anything else, but she was worried if she went back too much more word vomit would come out.

* * *

"The way he was staring at your ass told me this was probably for you, even though it has my name on it," Jeyne mocks as she holds out the folded napkin with _Jeyne_ scrawled on top and the tip to Arya.

“He wasn’t staring at my ass,” Arya argues. Her eyes widen at the $20 bill the Bull had left for her. He probably just forgot to get his change. She looks out the window and sees him walking away from the diner with his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. His tight leather jacket. _Down, girl_. She grabs the $20 and rushes outside before she misses him. “Hey,” she calls, but he doesn’t turn around. “Bull!”

He stops and looks back at her. She catches up to him and holds out the $20. “Did you forget to get change?”

He shakes his head.

“You sure? I gave you some pretty shitty service.” _Oh_ _my_ _God_ , _shut_ _up_! she wants to scream at herself.  _Just take the damn money._

He shakes his head again. “It’s yours. Ya get my note?” Arya shakes her head and the Bull starts to walk backwards towards the sidewalk. “Read it,” he says with a grin. His smile seems to brighten his face and Arya tries to ignore it. She gives him a small smile back and he turns to leave the parking lot.

Arya’s frozen for a moment before she walks back into the diner and takes the napkin from Jeyne. She unfurls it. “My name is Gendry. See you tonight?” Jeyne reads the note over her shoulder, which bothers Arya, but then she remembers that Jeyne did risk her neck by letting Arya take her name for the past hour, so she just tries to ignore it.

"He left you twenty dollars?" Shireen shrills. "He never tips me that good. Jerk," she mumbles and Arya grimaces a little. She hoped that Shireen wouldn’t feel insecure because of her scar, but then Shireen asks, "Care to tell me why my cousin thinks your name is Jeyne?" She raises an eyebrow and smirks.

"He's your cousin?" She asks, changing the subject. Shireen rolls her eyes.

"If he doesn't know what your actual name is, then I doubt I would've come up in conversation," she quips.

* * *

 Getting people to leave the diner when they’re used to having twenty-four theoretical hours to eat, is a lot harder than it sounds. They had clearly posted that they were closing today for the new owner’s sign to be put up and for a building inspection, but no one paid attention to it. They finally get the last diners out after nagging them for fifteen minutes.

Arya just hopes that with the new owner will come new hours that don't require her working from 11-5 in the middle of her Saturday nights or wearing the starchy blue dresses, but she tries not to get her hopes too high. She was gonna quit in a few weeks, so it didn’t really matter either way.

Jeyne and Arya clean the tables and sweep the floor while Shireen takes inventory and Lommy cleans the kitchen before the new owner arrives. A man tries to open the door, but it's locked, so he knocks instead.

"We're closed!" Arya calls. The man jiggles the door knob again. Arya steps forward and points to the door sign. "Closed!" She thought maybe he could be the new owner, but the new owner would have keys or something.

The man grins at her. “I'm the new owner! I can't seem to find my keys!" He laughs and Arya turns to look back at Jeyne and Shireen with a raise of her eyebrows. They shrug and Arya opens the door and lets him inside."Hi, good morning! I'm the new owner!"

_We_ _know_ , Arya thinks. _You've_ _told_ _us_.

"I'm Shireen," Shireen says with a beaming smile. "This is Jeyne and this is Arya."

“I'm glad to meet you! The new sign is outside if the three of you would like to see it!" They follow him outside to the front and Arya raises her eyebrows at the name change.

It read "Hot Pie's" which was not only misleading since most of the pies they served were cold, but the apostrophe had no reason to be on the sign. The pies didn't own anything.

"What do you think?" He says with a grin. Shireen and Jeyne give him gentle smiles and Arya looks at him.

"Why is there an apostrophe?" She asks. The new owner stares blankly at her. "The mark before the 'S.' Why is it there? The pies aren't possessive of anything."

“Arya,” Shireen berates. “She’s a journalist,” she says, trying to explain Arya’s tone. 

"Oh, that's my name!"

"Your name is Hot Pie?" Jeyne asks.

Hot Pie nods. "My mother never told me why, but yes! It's on my birth certificate, I think I have it in my car with the building title if you'd like to see it!"

"That's okay," Shireen says, gently. "That's just an interesting name."

Arya gives Hot Pie a weak smile. "I didn't mean to say that you were wrong," she apologizes. "I didn't know."

"That's okay!" Hot Pie beams. "I'm just glad to have my own diner. I've dreamed of this since I was young!" The girls stare at him for a moment. "Except, I—uh—I'm sorry to hear about the previous owner," he clears his throat a little.

“Yoren was elderly,” Shireen explains. “It was his time to pass, but he would be glad that someone so enthusiastic is here to carry on his business.”

Arya and Jeyne share a look. If Yoren was here he would’ve told Hot Pie to shut the fuck up several sentences ago. Shireen was one of the nicest people either of them had met, and while they wouldn't consider themselves to be mean, her patience still astounded them. Yoren would not have liked Hot Pie’s chipper mood, but at the same time, Arya didn’t see a reason why Hot Pie had to know that.

“That’s very kind of you to say, Shireen. You three are welcome to go home since I don’t plan on reopening until Wednesday.”

Arya grimaces a little at Hot Pie’s good news, because she was originally supposed to work until midnight tonight, but now she didn’t have a good excuse to not go back to the club. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to, but she didn’t have a recorder yet, so her time there wouldn’t be very beneficial, and also she doesn’t think she’d be able to face the Bull—or Gendry—without wanting to talk to him. She stays home that night and tries to forget that she met him before she goes back. He would only be a distraction, and his wide grin would not help her write her piece. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in my thot frenzy of writing this i jumped the gun and there is basically no character development before the smut next chapter so depending on if i decide to fix that or not the update may take a while lmaooo


	3. indigo puff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> arya flirts too much with gendry for her own good

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((warning: this chapter has smut because who cares about relationship development when arya and gendry can just fuck instead it’s canon now that they’re thirsty for each other))

 

**I feel the light surrounding me**   
**I'm open now and feeling free**   
**In time I, in time I, in time I...**   
**I see the sound land on my skin**   
**A passion moves me from within**   
**In time I, in time I, in time I...**

**You're the one, you're the one, you're the one**   
**Running through my brain**   
**It's in my brain**   
**You're the one, you're the one, you're the one**   
**You're the one, you're the one, you're the one**   
**In my heart, in my bones and in my soul**   
**You're the one who keeps me on my own**

**Indigo Puff ~ Sundara Karma**  

"You put up such a fight about telling me your real name just to write it on a napkin?" Arya asks him Sunday night, not able to resist the temptation to go and see him for a second night in a row. He uncrosses his arms when he hears her voice and smiles. 

“Well it might not be my real name. M’still not sure if your name is really Jeyne." Arya wonders if she bussed Jeyne's tables for nothing on Saturday as payment for trading nametags, then. She stays silent for a moment, an impressing feat for Arya, and finally decides how to respond. 

"My real name's Arya," she says. Gendry looks at her for a moment.

"I didn’t think it was Jeyne. Ya hesitated too much when ya told me.” Arya smiles a little. “Why’d ya say it was Jeyne?” He asks and Arya’s smile falls. 

"Didn't want anyone to know my name in case of a raid," she lies. She doesn’t hesitate. 

"Smart,” he teases and Arya nods, trying to mask another lie. He offers her a cigarette from his pack. Arya accepts it and leans against the wall beside him instead of the wall opposite of him. 

* * *

"You ever been beat?" She asks and takes a drag from her cigarette. She had decided to buy her own pack last week and still had a few cigarettes left because she only smokes once a night when she goes into the hallway with Gendry.

"Yeah. Not often."

"I could probably beat you," she says, half-thinking she actually _could_ after watching the way he fights, and half-thinking he'll just laugh at her. Gendry looks down her body for a moment, focusing on her hands and thighs. He shakes his head.

"You're too small. And I can't fight a girl."

"Why not? I'm strong enough."

"I’ve been fightin' for over a decade. You really wanna get in the ring with me?" He steps closer to her. She has to lift her chin higher to hold his gaze.

Arya shrugs and flicks ash from her cigarette, trying to seem casual about her boast. "I boxed from the time I was nine until high school.” She would’ve for longer, too, if it weren’t for that night. “I learned strategy. You only learned how to use brute force," she says and shifts her weight to her toes to stand taller than she really is. The top of her head almost levels with his shoulder.

"Ya don' know how strong I am," he leans his arm against the wall and gives her a small smile. Arya grabs hold of his leather jacket for leverage and leans up as close to his ear as she can.

"You don't know how quick I am," she murmurs and drops back on her heels. "See you tomorrow?"

Gendry mumbles something under his breath, and Arya assumes she wasn't meant to hear him say, "God, I hope so," before he smirks at her and steps back inside the club. Arya smiles to herself a little and wonders if the flirting and innuendos in her phrases were obvious enough to him as she walks home. 

* * *

"Thought I was gonna see ya last night." Arya turns at the sound of Gendry's voice. 

"I got busy." Since she had gotten her hands on one of the microcassette recorders, her article was piecing together nicely, but Ramsay was still breathing down her neck about how soon she could get it done. Mr. Stark had suggested that she publishes a portion of it weekly to get the story in high demand, but Ramsay had vehemently disagreed and Arya didn’t think it would be as easy to write once the club knew someone there was selling their information. She couldn’t stand agreeing with Ramsay, but she told Mr. Stark that she also thought it was a bad idea, so he decided to put the subject to rest for the remainder of their meeting. 

"Ya busy later?" The suggestiveness behind his question throws Arya off, but she doesn't show her shock.

“Busy for what?” She asks and casually flips her hair with her hand the stupid way she had seen in a film once. But hey, if it worked for Vivian, it would probably work for Arya, too.

“For whatever ya want,” he says, coolly. 

“And if I wanted to kiss you...” she raises her eyebrows. Gendry smiles. 

“Then ya should.”

And so she kisses him, because what really does she have to lose? She considers it for a moment and realizes that she has quite a bit that she could lose, actually, but his hands and lips were warm and somehow she ends up pressed against the wall. She pushes against his shoulder to move out of his grasp. He stops kissing her and looks at her in surprise, but Arya is already latching her mouth back to his and he steps backwards to press his back into the wall. He laughs a little into her mouth and she bites his tongue. He hisses, but doesn’t pull away. He runs his hands down her back and trails his fingers along the small strip of skin that was showing from her lifting her arms to his head. She pulls away and weighs her options. 

"And what if I said I wanted to fuck you?" she gives him a small smirk.

Gendry grins. “Then I would say that we have a very important decision to make. Your place or mine?”

”Yours,” she says, thinking about the small map of notes and possible owners of the club she had taped onto the wall of her living room. 

Arya knows she's probably stupid to go home with Gendry after only knowing him for a few weeks, but she was struggling to think rationally after that kiss.

_God_ , _his_ _arms_. _He_ _could_ _probably_ _just_ _pick_ _her_ _up_ _and_ \- Arya shakes her head a little, trying to at least think about the consequences of this.

Mr. Stark had told her specifically not to form close personal relationships with anyone involved in the club, and fucking one of the fighters not only fell under the umbrella, but probably made the damn thing.

His apartment isn't far from the club, and he leads her up the stairs to his floor. He fumbles with the keys, but he tries not to show it. Arya takes her shoes off by his door and Gendry does the same.

"The heat don’ work too good-" he starts to explain, but Arya doesn't pay much attention because she's leaning up to kiss him again once he shuts the door behind him. He shrugs his jacket off and Arya snakes her hands under his shirt and pulls it up. He lifts his arms, but she's too short to pull it all of the way off with his arms raised, but she refuses to admit that to him. Gendry sees her clearly struggling, so he grins and takes it off. She traces her fingers along one of the tattoos on his collarbone and he pulls her into another kiss. His hands reach for the backs of her thighs and he lifts her with ease. Arya hated it when people just picked her up, but there was something about the way Gendry's muscles flexed that made her blood run hot. She wraps her hands around his neck and crosses her ankles at his waist. He moves his hands to cup her ass and pushes her up so she has to lean down to kiss him again. She bites his bottom lip when he squeezes it and he laughs.

He starts to walk into his bedroom and Arya pushes herself out of his arms. He stares at her for a moment, but grins when she pushes him to sit on his bed and climbs into his lap. She rocks her hips forward and he kisses down her neck. He runs his hands up her legs and under the bottom of her shirt. Arya holds her breath while he brushes his fingers over the scars that littered her abdomen. He looks down at his hands and she feels him trace over the marks again. He lookslike he wants to ask, but Arya doesn't want to answer. She pulls the hem of the shirt up and over her head and unclips her bra in the hopes that she could distract him. Boys usually forgot that they felt her scars when she started taking off her clothes. But Gendry barely glances at her chest before he studies the marks. She hates them.

"What happened?"

"They're nothing," she finally says. "It's a long story. And I think you're too hard to wait," she murmurs and reaches her hand between them. Gendry blushes, but takes her hint to drop the subject when she unbuttons his jeans.

She lifts her hips off of him so he can push his jeans down, but when he struggles trying to reach around her, she stands instead and takes off her own jeans and underwear.

She moves back to Gendry and plants one of her legs on each side of him, and he grabs the back of her neck to pull her into a kiss. He runs his other hand down her waist and in between her legs and slips a finger inside of her. She gasps into his mouth, but doesn’t break the kiss. He thrusts his finger a few times, but he’s not touching her clit and Arya can’t help but think that he couldn’t be very experienced.

“Do you have a condom?” she asks. Gendry nods and pulls away from her. He pats her thigh a little and she moves off of him so he can stand and get one. She stares at his back while he looks and wonders if his back was really worth having subpar sex tonight. He retrieves the small wrapper and steps out of his boxers.

_Oh_.

She tries not to stare, but when he’s done putting the condom on he takes a step towards her and gives her a small grin.

“Is that why they call you ‘the Bull’ at the club?” She teases and tilts her head a little.

Gendry smiles with a teasing shake of his head and sits back down. He pushes himself up towards the middle and Arya moves over to him. He keeps a tight hold on her hips while she guides him into her and they both let out sharp breaths at the contact. She rocks her hips forward and Gendry digs his fingers tighter into her hips. She kisses him and Gendry pushes back up, trying to catch her rhythm.

She shoves his shoulders and pushes him onto his back, leaving his hands to hover over her hips. Her hands press down on his chest, careful to avoid a bruise under his breast and she uses them to push herself up and down against his thrusts.

She had to admit that he had stamina, but she could only chase her release for so long without getting one before she got frustrated. And she doubted Gendry. Handsome, _stupid_ Gendry. 

“Touch my clit,” she instructs. 

“Your _what_?”

Arya can’t remember if she really asks “are you fucking kidding me?” out loud, but she does know that she at least rolled her eyes. Gendry looks up at her expectantly and she reaches for one his hands. She leads it to her clit and Gendry holds it there.

“What do I do?" Arya pushes against his hand and presses his thumb over the nub of flesh. She rubs it in a small circular motion and relishes the feel of his hands. He was surprisingly gentle, but she still liked the way his rough hand scratched against her skin where he was holding her ribs. 

"There," she groans and lets go of him to let him do it on his own. He seems to panic for a moment and looks back up to her. Arya rocks her hips forward and Gendry presses his thumb down again.

"I don't know if I'm still doin' it right," he admits, and he fumbles a little. Arya presses her palms flat against his chest.

"It's right. It's very... _right_ ," she mumbles and she struggles to find words, which isn’t a common problem for her.

* * *

Arya slowly turns her head to see if Gendry is still sleeping. His mouth hangs open a little and she smiles. He _is_ cute. But she didn't want to stick around for an awkward morning only for him to tell her that he wasn't looking for anything serious. She wasn't either, really, but it would be easier if she just left now. She quietly searches out her clothes and pulls her jeans on. Gendry stirs a little and Arya grabs the rest of her clothes from his floor to finish getting dressed in his living room. She checks her purse for her wallet and keys and grimaces when she remembers that she didn't stop the recorder when she got here a few hours ago. She considers burning tonight's film so Ramsay doesn't hear her mewling for Gendry. The guy was already creepy enough to her and he definitely didn't need an audio aid to help him jack off. But she got information on the bets tonight, more than any of her coworkers had before, and they couldn't lose that. Her coworker Bran would just have to help her figure out how to erase the rest. 

* * *

"Why do you want to delete stuff off of here? You got more information in two weeks than the entire team did in six months," Bran raises his eyebrows at her and flips the cassette between his fingers.

Arya gives him an awkward smile and rests her head on top of his cubicle divider.

"Arya."

"Do you know the Bull?" Bran nods a little. The team was all over this case, so she would have been surprised if Bran hadn't at least heard of him. "He and I got along really well."

"Okay?"

"Like really, _really_ well."

"Arya." Bran sighs. "You didn't."

"I did. I definitely did. And I didn't have the time to stop the tape, to be honest."

"You were told not to form relationships with the fighters-"

"I know," she hisses. "Which is why I need you to delete _that_ ," she points to the cassette in his hand.

"Fine, I'll do it. But this is going to be the worst afternoon of my life," he grumbles and pulls a headset out of his drawer to connect it to the audio port of the company computer. "Do you think I'll get in trouble for listening to this at work?"

Arya shrugs. "I'm sure if you let Bolton listen to it he won't report it to Mr. Stark," she rolls her eyes. Bran uploads the file to a floppy disk and gives Arya the recorder back while he waits for it to save.

"You see the red button that says "STOP" on it?" Arya nods shamefully. "You press it... and it stops recording. If you press start again, it will erase the earlier track, so when you stop it, don't touch anything else until you save it."

"I know _how_ to stop it. I just got a little distracted," she mutters. Arya leaves Bran's desk and tries to start a report for last night at her cubicle across from his. She looks over to Bran, who's been flipping her off since he hit play. He fast forwards the tape as much as he can and yanks the headset off.

"No. I'm not doing it," he hisses and waves Arya over. "You can figure it out," he pats her on the back as he wheels out of the cubicle and into the break room. Arya rolls her eyes and drags her desk chair and coffee over to the computer. She puts on the headset and presses play.

" _It's_ _right_. _It's_ _very_ -"

Arya cuts the tape and stifles a laugh. _Poor Bran._

"Something funny, Arya?"

Arya mentally rolls her eyes before she turns to give her manager a smile. "No.”

"That your tape from last night?"

"Yes," Arya responds.

"Let me listen," Ramsay says and holds out his hand for the headset.

_Prick_.

"Let me rewind it," Arya lies. She quickly scans the computer screen for the trash icon and clicks it. She fakes a gasp. "Oh no! I think I deleted it!" Ramsay scowls at her. She smacks her palm to her temple. "God, I'm dense."

Ramsay huffs a breath. "This isn't your cubicle," He finally says. He gestures to the picture from Bran's wedding day with his wife Meera. A small photo of their son is taped to the bottom of the computer, too.

"Bran was just trying to show me how to download the file and listen to it. As you can see," she plays along with her story, "I really needed the help."

Ramsay rolls his eyes at her. "You're lucky that you have this assignment," he hisses. "You're too stupid for it anyway. It should have gone to someone like me. You can't even play the tape without deleting it. I knew Mr. Stark was wrong to choose a girl." Arya takes a sip of her coffee. Being a girl has definitely helped her with this assignment. "I wouldn't have deleted a night's worth of information."

Arya shrugs. "Mistakes happen."

"Well don't let it happen again. Mr. Stark sees some sort of potential in you. I can't imagine why," Ramsay mutters to himself as he walks away.

Arya flips him off from behind the computer screen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel asleep three separate times while writing this so that could mean that this chapter was either really boring or the terrible awful second scenario where i am sick and need to rest but i refuse to accept that fact because i only have like a week left before i finish this damn semester


	4. ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> arya does not learn any lessons from her most recent bad decision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: this chapter is 80% smut i have no regrets

 

**Losing the feeling now**   
**Laugh when I hit the ground**   
**And searching in the dark**   
**Saying that she isn't on**

**I don't ever wanna go**   
**Living in a memory, nothing to show**   
**But I can let it get away hanging out the window**   
**Nothing to say**

**Speak out in a different language**   
**Don't mind, I can take my eyes off it**   
**We will run in to grow up every weekend**   
**Now we're watching the moments as they're leaving**

**Ground ~ Wallows**

Arya hadn’t considered how she would have to act the next time she saw Gendry when she had made the decision to sleep with him and very nearly screamed his name last weekend, but she had assumed they would just have a mutual understanding to ignore each other. She was almost done with her piece, so she didn’t need to spend much longer at the club. Arya only needed personal details from the people in the club. She would be able to get something from Gendry if he decided to acknowledge her, but she knew it wouldn’t be easy to gather anecdotes from the other fighters. They were wary of outsiders, and while she had considered fighting in the ring, she hadn’t boxed since her and Jon had to move, and she wasn’t really sure if she would be able to go back to it. Everything was easier when she didn’t think about before. And there was no way the police would give the _Stark Journal_ writers _that_ much immunity. 

"Hey," Arya hears Gendry from behind her. Arya stops walking and bites her lip a little. "Ya ran off last time I saw ya."

She hesitates, trying to remember how she had planned to react to him if he acknowledged her. 

_Right_. _Anecdote_.

She lets go of her lip and turns around to face him. “You looked pretty peaceful. I didn't want to wake you," she says to cover her ass about sneaking off to avoid an awkward morning after. 

"I wish ya would've." Arya's heart beats a little faster and Arya wants to tell her heart to hold its horses, because she barely knew Gendry, but she would be lying if she said that she wasn't excited that Gendry was still interested in her.

_Anecdote_. 

Arya shrugs casually. "You fighting tonight?"

He nods. "I'm on my way to change now," he says.

“Good luck,” she says and he smiles a little.

“I don’t need it,” he boasts.

“Don’t get too cocky,” she teases and smiles back. Arya watches him walk back into a small room before taking her usual seat at the bar top.

Gendry fights as he always does, blocking and punching and occasionally wiping blood from his face. But she hears the gasps from the people watching the fight up front more than the sickening crack of Gendry's hand. He finishes the fight anyway, knocking his opponent to the ground and using his left hand to hit until the other man taps out. Gendry steps straight out of the ring and to the club's medic. Arya makes her way up to Gendry, having to push past a few people gawking around him, earning her more than a few dirty looks.

"My knuckles are broken," he sighs and nods to the black and blue hand that Qyburn is taping. All of his knuckles are bleeding, but his last two fingers bend forward a little further than his other fingers. Qyburn doesn’t set them back. 

"Ouch," Arya mumbles. She looks over at his other hand, and while his index and middle knuckle were starting to turn a little blue, it looked mostly unharmed.

Gendry shrugs a little. "It ain't my first break. Qyburn here said it would prob'ly heal in a few weeks, but I can't fight tomorrow," he grumbles. "If I use it, it'll take longer to heal." 

"You can't fight for at least a week, if you want that hand to heal," Qyburn says and Gendry sighs as well as he can with a bit of cotton in his nose.

"A week?" Qyburn nods.

Qyburn was a doctor who lost his medical license about twelve years ago due to performing unauthorized exploratory surgeries on his patients. Arya found out lask week that the club hired him a few years ago to treat the fighters so the local hospitals didn't get suspicious when people came in late at night with cracked knuckles, ribs, and eye sockets. Arya wasn't sure how much she trusted Qyburn's medical advice, but he was better than no doctor at all, so Arya doesn't complain.

A small smile pulls at Gendry's lips when Qyburn tells him that he's free to leave and pulls the cotton from his nose. "D'ya wanna go?" He asks Arya when Qyburn turns to Gendry's opponent to stitch up his lip. 

Arya tilts her head a little at him and grins. "Go where?" she teases. Gendry wraps an arm around her shoulders and pushes past people so they can leave. More people crowded him now and Arya has to start pushing past people at her side, too.

One gawking man loudly complains to the person next to him that he didn't have anyone to bet on tomorrow night and Gendry rolls his eyes at Arya. "M'fine, thanks," he grumbles and they finally make it to the door. They step out into the empty hallway and Gendry releases his hold on Arya. "I broke my hand and they’re acting like I can never fight again. I've broken it before. It'll fucking heal."

"I've never seen them crowd you like that," she observes and he shrugs. 

"That was nothing. More 'an once people have threatened to kill me for losing a fight and losing them out on a bunch of money," he says, casually, like it should be a regular part of his life. Arya bites the side of her lip.

"Did you tell your boss?” 

"The fuck is Roose gonna do about it?" Gendry scoffs.

_Roose_. _Roose_. _Roose_.

It was a stupid name, she would remember it. She wants to push about Roose, but Gendry probably wasn't used to having to keep his boss's name a secret at work and she didn't want to use him for her story. He was sweet on her and it would make her feel guilty. She couldn't be sure if Roose was running the club, either, but he was another name she could add to her list. "He would prob'ly tell 'em to go ahead because he loses money on those nights, too."

"Your boss bets on you?"

Gendry stays silent for a little bit, and changes the subject. "If I don't fight tomorrow, then my hand will prob’ly be fine by Monday."

"You're not supposed to fight for at least a week," she reminds him.

"Right."

"You're gonna fight on Monday, anyway though." 

"Ya act like ya know me or somethin'," he teases and grins. 

"I know that you're too stubborn for your own good," she shoots back as they climb the stairs in his apartment building. 

Gendry pulls her into a kiss outside of his apartment door and searches for his keys in his pocket. He unlocks the door quickly and Arya sets her bag, with the recorder turned _off_ , and shoes down by his door. They peel off layers as they walk and Arya pushes Gendry to sit on the edge of his bed. She stands in between his legs and cups his face with her hands while she licks his bottom lip, trying to get him to open his mouth.

He pulls at the back of her thighs to lift her, but she pushes his right hand away and breaks their kiss. "Your hand's broken," she reminds him. 

Gendry waves his hand in dismissal. "It's just my last two knuckles. Not important." 

"Yes, important." Gendry tilts his head back and rolls his eyes.

"You're so light. I could just-" Arya raises her eyebrows at him and Gendry stops talking. "Fine," he sighs and Arya presses one of her knees into the mattress by his leg. She pulls her other leg into his lap. 

"You need your hand to heal." She pushes his shoulders. "And besides," she teases. "I like you better on your back, anyway." Gendry struggles to smirk through his blush.

* * *

"Can I do something annoying?" Arya asks when Gendry stands.

"Ya have to tell me what it is first."

"Can I wear one of your shirts?"

He smiles and pulls one from his closet. Gendry holds it out to her by the collar. She reaches for the shirt, but he pulls it out of her grasp. "Only if ya don't button it up."

Arya rolls her eyes at the stipulation and snatches the shirt.

"I only asked because I'm cold." She isn't _that_ cold, but that didn't really matter. Gendry didn’t lie when he said the heat wasn’t great and she hadn’t worn a jacket or anything slightly warm tonight. 

"I could keep ya warm."

"Do you plan on fucking me until morning?"

He shrugs. "Somethin’ like that," he says with a smirk as Arya pulls her arms through the light blue shirt. The sleeves hang over her hands and the hem pools at her waist. When she stands to shove his shoulder lightly, the shirt reaches almost to her knees and he laughs at her futile push.

"I don't think that will work out so well for you," she says and buttons the shirt anyway.

"Why?"

"You can't keep up." 

"I can keep up," he argues.

Arya shakes her head. "You're cute," she mocks.

Gendry rolls his eyes at her and pulls on a new pair of boxers and a T-shirt.

"Ya hungry?" He asks and Arya nods. She helps him make grilled cheese sandwiches (even though he insists he can do it with one hand, he keeps using his broken hand every time Arya turns her back) and they drink beer while they watch some stupid show on his TV.

She's grateful that it was a Friday night, and that she didn't have to work at the diner until noon tomorrow. She didn't work at the office again until Monday, but thinking about the office made her think about the lie she had been feeding Gendry from the start so she kisses him to distract herself. Gendry was mid shouting at the people on the TV, but he doesn't object to Arya kissing him and he runs his hands along her arms. He slips his good hand under the shirt to grasp at her ribs and slides it up to her breasts. Arya runs her hands down his neck and shoulders, squeezing his biceps when he forms her nipples into small peaks. He presses his other hand into her back and trails his lips down her chin and neck. She hadn't buttoned the shirt all the way up, so he can kiss the exposed skin along her collarbone.

"I wish ya would've left it unbuttoned," he teases, and leans forward to move Arya onto her back. He shifts to lay down at her side and props himself up between the back of the couch and his right arm. The shirt rides up Arya's thighs and she grins. Arya bends her knees beside him and pulls the sleeves up her wrists to uncover her hands. She slowly unbuttons Gendry's shirt, starting with the top. Gendry watches her and slides his free hand along her bare thigh before he slips it beneath the hem of the shirt. She opens the button down to drape over both of her hips and Gendry kisses her stomach. He rubs her cunt through her underwear and Arya lets out a small sigh under him. "This okay?" he asks.

Arya murmurs a "yes" and shifts her legs to spread them. He pulls aside her panties and slowly pushes a finger inside of her as he drags his tongue up from her abdomen, stopping at her neck.Gendry nudges the fabric covering her breast aside and kisses the smooth skin before he takes her nipple into his mouth. Arya clenches her eyes shut as he pushes another one of his fingers inside her, using his thumb to rub her where she had showed him last weekend. She squeezes her legs around his wrist, trying to soothe the ache she felt in her stomach, but he pushes one of her thighs down and pins it beneath his leg. She feels him hard and pressed against her thigh, but he makes no move to stop touching her. She brings her hand up to tug at his hair and lets out a soft moan. He strokes her clit and pumps his fingers into her a little faster each time. She moans again. Gendry looks up at her with his blue eyes and grins before he swirls his tongue. She used to think her tits were too small because of the words that had been said about her in many girls' locker rooms, but Gendry seemed to like them just fine. She pulls his hair when he nips the side of her breast. He sucks her nipple back into his mouth and Arya shifts against his hand between her legs. She pulls his hair again and rubs her thigh against his arm, almost trying to pull away, but she isn't sure why. Gendry keeps her other leg firmly pinned, but she still squirms under him, trying to gain some control. Gendry has to shift his arm to keep from losing his balance, and Arya settles for dragging her thigh along his arm instead of pushing him over. He nips the side of her breast, and her nails bite into his scalp, pulling a low moan from her throat. She feels him grin against her and resists the urge to shove him for being smug, but if he could make her feel like this he probably deserved to be a little smug once in a while. Her heart pounds against her chest, and she gets closer to falling over the edge with every stroke of his fingers.

He spreads his fingers and hooks them inside of her, finally releasing the ache Arya felt in her belly. She twists beneath him and all she can do is let out a gasp. She clenches around his fingers and struggles to catch her breath as Gendry continues to pump his fingers and suck at her breast. She had heard about it from friends and from a dirty magazine her coworker had mentioned to her, but didn't think it could actually happen until Gendry pulled another orgasm from her. She arches her back and lets out a sharp cry, biting her lip to muffle the scream she wants to make. She opens her mouth to say something, but she can't remember any words and her chest heaves against Gendry's mouth. She stares at the hideous ceiling in a daze before she has to put an end to Gendry's touch. Arya could only handle so much in one evening.

"You're a fast learner," she says shakily and Gendry grins. She pulses around him one last time and he finally stops torturing Arya.

“I told ya I could use my left hand just fine," he brags before Arya shoves his shoulder and rolls her eyes. Gendry pulls his hand away from her and shifts to keep his weight off of Arya.

He doesn't know what to do with the come left on his fingers, and Arya is a little tangled up with him, so he sticks them in his mouth to suck the taste off of them. Arya sucks in a breath and watches his mouth. He pulls his fingers out and Arya surges forward to kiss him. Gendry lets out a small laugh and she can still feel him stiff against her legs. She breaks away from the kiss and sighs. "I- I'm gonna be honest... I don't think I can do it again," she admits, gesturing to his stiffy. Gendry lets out a chuckle.

"That's okay," he smiles at her. Arya melts a little into his understanding eyes and before she can think with better sense, she pulls her underwear down and kicks them off at her ankles. Him and his stupid blue eyes. She sticks her fingers into the waistband of Gendry's boxers and he twists his hips away from her a little. "Hey, hey, it's okay. Ya don' have to," he assures. 

"I know that I don't have to. I want to." Gendry gives her a soft smile and Arya leans up. "And it would be such a shame if you got me this wet just to go to sleep," she whispers in his ear and she feels his face flush. He moves into a kneel over her before he steps off of the couch.

"I gotta get a condom," he mumbles and Arya almost laughs at how red his poor face is. He could finger her and suck on her tits, but would still blush if she made a dig about it after the fact. Gendry comes back with the condom in his hand and he stands before Arya. She reaches up to push his boxers off his legs and moves to her knees on the couch. Arya trails her hand down the front of his body and Gendry swallows thickly.  She wraps her hand around the base of him and runs her thumb along the underside. She slowly slides her hand to the top and rubs her palm over the head where his arousal is beading up at the tip. She hadn't sucked anyone off in a while, but it was just like riding a bike. Once she got started, she could remember pretty easily. She brings her lips down to wrap them around his cock and he drops the condom to grab her hair. She takes a deep breath through her nose and tries to fit as much of his cock as she can in her mouth. She hits the back of her throat and Gendry lets out a strangled noise like a groan and a gasp before he twists his hips away from her mouth.

"Don'... don' start that. Or I won' last long," he admits and pulls out of her mouth. Arya smiles up at him and he lets out a nervous laugh. Arya pushes herself up to stand on the couch. She stands taller than him, but it makes it easier for her to kiss him. Gendry grabs the back of her knees to pull her legs up onto his waist and Arya laughs when he turns to sit down on the couch with Arya on his lap. She can't even berate him for holding her up with his broken hand and twists to the side to lean down and grab the condom from the floor. She opens it for him with a grin and rolls it on. He presses his broken hand into the small of her back and grabs her hip with the other to pull her hips to line her up with him. Arya helps guide him inside of her and kisses him, pulling his bottom lip into her mouth to suck. Gendry leans forward against her and pulls on her knees to plant them on either side of his thighs. He runs his good hand under the shirt and and along her back. She grabs the side of his face and he pulls his lip out of her mouth to replace it with his tongue. Arya sighs and moves her hands to his shoulders to push herself up before she drops back down. Gendry brings his hand down to stroke her cunt and she sighs out a "fuck," and presses her nails into Gendry's back. He pulls away from her kiss and rests his other hand on her lower back as she rides him. He catches her eyes and holds her gaze. He wets his lips with his tongue as his eyes dart down her body and back up to her eyes and it gives Arya a thrill, to know what he thinks of her. Another part of her wants to pull Gendry's shirt around her closed and climb off of him. She ignores the latter Arya. 

Gendry grabs her under the shoulders, catching her off guard, and pushes her up to flip her back against the seat of the couch. He leans down to lay in between her legs and plants a kiss on her mouth. She shifts her legs around his hips and Gendry adjusts his arms to hold himself up. "Am I crushin' ya?" he asks in between kisses. His hips are heavy against hers but she thought that it felt strangely nice.

"No," she assures and Gendry kisses her. He quickly shifts her leg up against her stomach and she gasps into his mouth when he guides himself back into her. He pulls his hand back to lean on his forearms and moves his lips to kiss her neck. She drags a hand through his hair and digs her nails into his shoulder when he thrusts forward, letting out a soft moan when he thrusts again. Arya brings her hand from his shoulder in between them to touch herself. She rolls her nub between her fingers and clenches around Gendry. He groans against her neck and the wanting in her builds. His thrusts get faster and she wraps her legs around his waist, making it easier to push herself up with him. She pulls his lips back to hers to kiss and he moans into her mouth as she sucks on his tongue.

He pulls his lips away and digs his fingers into her back as she rubs her thigh against his hip. "Fuck, Arya," he hisses and thrusts into her again. Her legs start to tremble around him and she lets out a soft cry. He pulls one of his arms out from under her and rubs it along her thigh. "Arya," he begs again and moves to stroke her along with her hand. She writhes a little and pulls his hair.

" _God_ — _fucking_ — _Gendry_ ," she hisses when she peaks. He grins against her mouth when he leans down to kiss her again, as his thrusts get jerkier. She bites his tongue in retaliation for his smugness, but it only makes him grin more. He twitches inside of her and releases a groan that vibrates her mouth and neck. His arm shakes a little under her and his chest slides against her ribs with each breath he takes. She pulls her arm from between them to rub her fingers along his sweaty back under his T shirt.  She removes her hand and pats his shoulder a little before she lets out a labored breath. "I... As much as I enjoyed that round, Gendry... you're starting to crush me."

"Oh, right. Sorry," Gendry mumbles and pulls out of her. He stands to throw away the condom and then comes back to pull his boxers on from off of the floor. Arya sits up slowly, thinking that if she moves too fast, she might actually die. She wraps the shirt around herself despite the sweat down her back and Gendry pulls a blanket down from the back of the couch to hand to her. She smiles gratefully at him and covers her legs. "Do you want another beer?" He asks. Arya nods, and accepts the open bottle when he hands it to her. He pulls the other side of the blanket up to sit down and tucks it around his legs. "Did I keep ya warm enough?" Gendry teases her as he sets his beer down on the coffee table and leans closer to her. She shifts to let him lay his head in her lap in case he wants to. 

"You did okay," she teases back and Gendry rests his head on her thighs and hangs his feet off the end. 

Arya can't stop the stupid grin on her face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i spent a lot of time contemplating if i should even publish this smut bc compared to the rest of the smut ive written this is the “raunchiest” ((im doing my best okay)) because every time i try to write smut my christian guilt complex forces me to think ‘what would jesus say’ and i know in my heart of hearts he would say “this bitch be trippin if she really think we’re gonna let her into heaven”


	5. wolves (you got me)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> arya is forced to think about her relationship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> totally song recycled from my last fic but it’s fine this song is just a good 
> 
> also this fic has minor jonsa die mad about it i like to keep my backgrounds well rounded across fics

* * *

 

**All the other ones**   
**Never made it this far**   
**They all were dust**   
**When they saw what you are**

**Still I chase you down**   
**To the place you hide**

**Will I make it out**   
**Make it out alive**

**You got me brainwashed**   
**You got me so lost**   
**You got me fucked up**   
**Like you**

**You got me drugged up**   
**You got me undone**   
**Falling in love**   
**Like you do**

**And if you lie down with wolves**   
**You learn to howl**

**Wolves (You Got Me) ~ Dreamers**

Arya wakes up at ten the next day, and Gendry has an arm around her waist. She smiles a little to herself and brushes her fingers along his broken hand and forearm. His knuckles were still a shade of blue, but ice would hopefully help that.

She needed to be at work at noon, but she didn't want to get out of Gendry's arms. Her feet were cold from being out from under the blanket, but her back and stomach were sweating from the heat of his chest and arm. She lays against him for a few more minutes, but when she tries to wriggle out without waking him up, he pulls her tighter to him. He's poking her in the ass now and she can't help but let out a bubble of laughter. She realizes how bad her breath smells and wonders what level people had to be on in a relationship to bring a toothbrush to their apartment. He stirs a little more and sighs before he opens his eyes.

"Morning," she says and shifts to sit up. He makes a sound of protest, but lets her go when he realizes he was pressed against her.

"Sorry," he mumbles, but Arya only grins. She pulls up his hand to kiss it and sets it back down on the mattress by him.

"It's fine," she assures and stands up to search out her clothes. She gives him a lazy smile as she walks to his side of his bed to retrieve her jeans. Arya was right about last night, and just as she suspected, she doesn't walk very well the next morning. She would've been up to go for a morning round if she wasn't so sore (and if she had brought a toothbrush). She was fine last weekend, but Gendry had made her come four times in one night, which was probably a new personal record. "How's your hand?"

"Feels fine," he says and pushes himself to sit up.

"You sure?"

"It's sore, but it don't hurt too bad. I just need to ice it."

"Good," she says and picks up her discarded bra and shirt to set on the bed.

"Ya hungry? I could make ya some eggs," Gendry offers, but Arya shakes her head.

As much as she wants to stay, she still has to work at the diner today, and Mr. Stark wants her piece by the end of the month. She winces a little when she thinks of that. She was supposed to get as much information about the club as she could over the course of the few weeks, but now the thought made her a little sick. She had learned a lot about the club from Gendry. Gendry, who her coworkers had all said was hateful and rude, had a smile so bright it made everything around him look dull, and she was meant to sell out information on him. Gendry stares at her and Arya realizes he's waiting for her answer.

"I have to get to work in a few hours and I need to shower," she sighs.

Gendry nods and tears a chunk of paper out of the phonebook on his nightstand. He finds a pen in his drawer and writes down his phone number for her, before pressing it into her hand.

"I like you, Arya," he tells her. "A lot."

Arya leans forward to peck his lips and takes the paper. "When should I call?"

"I'm not going to the club tonight," he suggests. Arya gives him a small smile.

"Then you can visit me at the diner," she teases. Gendry pulls her forward by the flaps of the shirt to stand between his knees.

"I'll be there," Gendry grins at her before he kisses her again. He pushes his shirt off of her shoulders, lightly trailing his fingers down her arms as he goes. "Go on, then. Get to work," he advises. He watches her as she hooks her bra and she smirks when she sees him looking.

"I'm working until midnight," she says. Gendry nods and stands from his bed. Arya pulls her shirt on and picks her jeans back up. She steps out into the living room and Gendry follows her out to start a pot of coffee. She finds her panties by the couch and grimaces a little before deciding to forgo them long enough to get home. Toothbrush and panties. That wouldn't mean anything, because they hadn't discussed if they were together or not, but it would make her feel better about screwing him if she brought them. She didn't even know if he considered them to be together or not.

Arya grabs her bag and shoes by the door and starts to wave bye to Gendry, but he grabs her elbow and pulls her into a kiss.

"See ya tonight," he says. Arya nods and he opens his apartment door for her to leave.

"See you tonight," she says back, and steps outside, barely able to contain the smile on her face.

* * *

Arya sets down a sandwich in front of a customer and starts to ask if they need anything else. She hears the bell above the door ring and instinctively looks, catching Gendry's eyes. She finishes asking her customer if he needs anything and he shakes his head. Arya smiles at Gendry and he sits down at the counter in front of Arya. He leans forward and she likes the way the leather of his jacket stretches over his arms. He wore it all the time, but this was the first chance she had to properly ogle him without feeling creepy.

"Gendry," Shireen grins and covers him in a hug. He hugs her back, but he keeps his eyes on Arya. " _Oh_ ," she teases. "You're not here to see me, are ya?"

Gendry turns to her. "Well, M’glad to see ya, but no," he admits.

Arya smiles. "You here for me?" She teases. Gendry opens his mouth, but Shireen clutches his wrist.

“Your hand’s broken,” she murmurs. Gendry sighs and tries to give Shireen a soft smile.

“It’s fine,” he insists. “I iced it all morning.”

Shireen purses her lips, clearly disappointed with his answer, but she lets go of his arm. Gendry turns back to Arya. “And actually, no," he smirks. "I'm here to see Hot Pie."

"You gotta crush on him?" Arya asks, raising her eyebrows.

Gendry winces playfully. "Yeah, I do, actually. I've got a big heart-on for him."

Arya can't stop the giggle that falls from her mouth and she feels ridiculous. First Gendry made her word vomit, but now he made her giggle? 

_Heart-on._ What an idiot.

Shireen sets down a coffee mug in front of Gendry and sighs dramatically. "I guess you don't have time for me anymore," she teases. "Now that you have Arya _and_ Hot Pie, it's like I don't even exist," she pinches Gendry's bicep and he rolls his eyes at her.

"Awe, Shireen, I always have time for you," he promises. Shireen tsks and walks away from Arya and Gendry. Arya grins at him.

"Do you want the usual?"

"The usual?" He grins and tilts his head at her. "I guess ya really do know me." Arya raises her eyebrows again, waiting for confirmation. "Yes," he says.

Arya smiles at him, but she's interrupted when a man a few seats away from Gendry snaps in her direction. Gendry rolls his eyes and motions with his head to the man. Arya plasters a fake smile on her face and walks over to the table.

She listens to him complain about his cold omelette before he's satisfied with her getting him a new order of warm eggs, and she has to stop herself from responding with something snarky. She couldn't wait to quit working here.

* * *

Arya cashes an order and sees Shireen pat Gendry's back. "I know I was giving you crap earlier, but..." Arya hands the woman her change with a quick smile. 

"Have a nice night," she breathes out, trying not to miss Shireen's words.

"I really am happy for you. You're not as broody," she teases and pinches his arm again. Gendry smiles and lightly pushes her away. 

"I'm not broody," he protests, but Shireen gives him a look. Gendry gives her a smile. “Thank you, Shireen,” he says. 

“She better make you take better care of your hands, though,” she hisses. “You only get two, and your right is always busted up.”

Arya smiles to herself and closes the cash register. She checks on some of the other patrons, and calls an order back to Hot Pie. Hot Pie nods and puts another burger on the grill.

Shireen sees Arya turn back from the kitchen and pats Gendry’s shoulder before she collects a customer’s plate.

* * *

Arya sweeps the floor behind the counter while waiting for her shift to end. Gendry folds up the wrapper from his straw and then unfolds it to wrap around his finger.

"You don't have to stay if you're bored," Arya says, reaching to grab the dustpan. Shireen had gone home an hour before and Gendry was running out of things to do.

Gendry shrugs. "I'm okay."

"Alright," Arya replies and scoops up the thin layer of dirt. She squats and Gendry stares at the edge of the skirt that was now pulled tight around her thighs. At least there was some upside to the ugly blue uniform she had to wear. She didn't hate dresses, but these were stiff and far too short for her taste. Arya looks up at him and raises her eyebrow at him. He clears his throat when she stands up, far slower than necessary.

"Want me to walk you home later?"

"No," Arya says, too sharp. Gendry opens his mouth, but Arya adds, "My brother’s working a late shift, so I’m bringing him dinner, but thanks." She wasn't going to see her brother until Monday night, but she knew that she couldn't bring Gendry anywhere near her apartment. She had added Roose's name to the map, and Arya didn't want Gendry to see her piece outline. He was being sweet, but she couldn't let him come inside because it wouldn’t take him too long to figure out what she was doing with information about the club taped to her living room wall.

“Oh, alright,” he says. He sets down the straw wrapper on his plate. Arya hesitates. She sets the broom down and grabs the collar of Gendry’s jacket to pull him into a quick kiss. There were only a few other customers in the diner still, but none of them noticed. Arya prints his receipt and hands it to a dazed Gendry. She smiles at him as he fumbles with the paper. She thought it was funny that he was embarrassed that she had kissed him while she was at work since she kissed him while he was at work all of the time. Gendry hands her his money and grins. “When am I gonna see ya next?” he asks. 

Arya shrugs with a small smirk. “How about I call you?”

* * *

"Bran said that you were boinking one of the fighters," Sansa hisses in her ear Monday morning when she sets a cup of coffee on Arya's desk.

"Please never say "boinking" to me again," Arya mumbles and reaches for the coffee.

Sansa ignores Arya's protest and pries for more information. "Who is he?"

"He's one of the fighters," Arya says with a shrug. Arya had introduced her coworker Sansa to her brother on accident a few years ago, and now they were engaged to be married. Arya liked Sansa, but Jon was also her older brother, and she didn't want Sansa telling Jon her business.

"I know. Bran told me that much, but he didn't tell me which one." Sansa was like the sister Arya never had—and also never wanted—when she pried for details about Arya's sex life.

"He goes by 'the Bull,'" Arya finally supplies, eager to get some work done on her piece. She liked Sansa, but she already felt guilty enough and didn't like thinking about Gendry while she had to focus on what she was actually doing every time he smiled at her.

" _Him_?"

Arya nods, and waves her off. "I have to work."

"You're boinking ' _the Bull_?'" Sansa whispers, raising her eyebrows. Arya wants to hiss at her to be quiet, not wanting anyone else in the office to hear Sansa. No one looks over at them, so Arya hopes she’s safe. "He hates talking to other people.” Sansa pauses. “He hates _other people_. How did you-" 

"I have to work," Arya says again, firmer this time. Sansa blinks at her for a few more moments, probably processing how Arya managed to enrapture Gendry’s attention. Sansa takes the hint and leaves Arya alone to think about how stupid she was for ever even talking to him in the first place. So fucking stupid.

* * *

Arya chats happily with her brother about his police training and she talks about how she’s doing working at the _Stark Journal_ , but Arya wants to punch Sansa as soon Jon brings up the topic of Gendry. She told Sansa this fucking morning, so there’s no reason that Sansa had to tell Jon right away.

"So... I've been talking with Sansa," Jon starts gently. Arya rolls her eyes and bites the edge of her tongue. She’s twenty-three, yet Jon still treats her like she’s a child. "She said that you were doing an undercover piece for the Stark Journal."

Arya looks away from him. She had asked Sansa countless times in the past to not discuss Arya with him. Sansa was Arya's friend, and Jon was Arya's older brother. They had vastly different relationships and there were some things that Jon didn’t need to know. Sansa hadn’t betrayed her confidence recently, but Arya was probably stupid to think that she wouldn’t ever again. 

"I am."

"And that you weren't supposed to form any relationships with anybody?"

"Yeah."

"But you are."

Arya clenches her jaw. "I told Sansa to stop telling you this stuff." He worried too much about her, and Sansa fed into it every time she passed along information meant only for her.

"Arya-"

"No. It's not your business who I fuck, Jon. Sansa was my friend for years before you decided that you loved her, and I never once complained because I knew you two were happy. So, no, you don't get to judge my relationship."

"Arya, he's a fighter. He could be arrested, and she said that he was covered in tattoos, and that he is so hateful, and she said he was twice your size-“ 

"What if I want that? Maybe I like to be manhandled," she scoffs. Two could play at this game. If Jon was going to tell her what he knew she didn’t want to hear, she would give it right back to him.

Jon grimaces. "Arya, I don't- you know I hate hearing that kind of stuff," he sighs. Arya did know, but she hated when he talked to her like she was a child. She wasn't a child, and she could fuck whomever she wanted. "What if he hurts you? Someone who makes a living off of violence can't keep that at bay," Jon protests.

"He wouldn't hurt me." He was gentle (for the most part) and sweet to her. Arya saw the way that Shireen adored him and found it hard to believe that Gendry actually enjoyed being violent. She hadn't asked about his past, but she figured there was more to his story than she knew just yet.

"How can you know that for sure?" Jon accuses.

"Because he's a good man," she hisses.

"He's a _criminal_ ," Jon says.

Arya pushes her fry around in her ketchup. "Have you met him?" she grumbles. Jon shakes his head. "Then how would you know any better than me what he's like?" Jon opens his mouth and closes it.

"The station's cracking down on them, Arya. I know you've been given an assignment, but when we find the ring, I can't promise that you would be safe if there was a raid," Jon mumbles. "I love you, Arya. I don't want to see you get hurt."

Arya swallows. "I'm not going to get hurt. If there's a raid, he'll know how to get us out," she promises. Jon clenches his jaw and reaches for his water. They sit in an awkward silence for a while before Jon can’t take it anymore. "Should Sansa and I mark you down with a plus-one for our wedding, then?" he sighs and Arya grins.

"I don't think we're serious yet. I'll let you know in a few weeks."

" _Weeks_? The wedding is in less than two months, Arya. We need to have a final count by the 1st."

Arya shrugs. "You should've had a courthouse wedding, then." Jon rolls his eyes and Arya takes a bite of her burger. She tries to keep her mood light, but what if there was a raid? What if she wasn't there and Gendry wasn't out of the building in time? Would her brother have to be the one to arrest Gendry? Would Gendry even get arrested or would he fight the officers and get himself killed? She bites the side of her cheek on accident and grimaces as the coppery taste of blood pools in her mouth.

"Are you alright?" Jon asks. Arya nods.

"Fine," she lies. She grabs one of Jon’s french fries and smiles. Gendry wouldn’t get arrested. She was just being stupid.

"Hey!" Jon protests. Arya only grins at him and eats the fry despite having her own. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ooooh boy so good news this chapter was barely written last week which is why it took forever to update and i am DONE WITH SCHOOL (for this school year 🙃) so that means i can hopefully get the next update up very soon bc its mostly plotted out and written i just need to do some editing!


	6. outskirts of paradise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> arya realizes how fine the line she walks is starting to get

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: this chapter contains smut and mega violence at the end, if you can’t stomach that pls lmk and i will summarize it for you
> 
> also i dont think im ready for the finale like if the leaks ((i wont say what they are dont worry)) are true hbo can keep it

 

**Rolled down the window now**  
**I've lost my way within this town**  
**The tranquil glow of the song I know, it guides me**  
**I’m stuck in strip mall times**  
**The mood swings under porcelain skies**  
**Won't you be my friend, won't you be my friend for now?**

**I'm on the outskirts of paradise**  
**Chasing desire through the night**  
**Picturing ways to take flight**  
**When the time comes**

**When the time comes**  
**Separate yourself, integrate yourself**  
**When the time comes**  
**Separate yourself, integrate yourself**

**Awestruck or asinine**  
**An ephemeral sense of space and time**  
**A familiar face, a pulse that escalates**  
**I'm stuck in strip mall times**  
**I don't mean to be impolite**  
**Won't you be my friend, won't you be my friend for now?**  
**For just a little bit, hey**

**I'm on the outskirts of paradise**  
**Chasing desire through the night**  
**Picture in ways that they fly**  
**When the time comes**  
**Outskirts of paradise**  
**Chasing desire through the night**  
**Picture in ways that they fly**  
**When the time comes**

**Outskirts of Paradise ~ Bad Suns**

”I'm not gonna fucking fight him," Arya hears Gendry mutter when she steps out into the hallway. She stays hidden in the doorway when she hears another man speak. Arya had already missed Gendry's fight when she got here earlier, but she had done a good job of avoiding him long enough to actually get work on her piece done. The last fight of the night ended, and she had gone to find Gendry, but she didn't want to interrupt his argument.

"Why not?" the other man asks, with an edge of annoyance in his voice. He looks like he's about Gendry's age, with red hair and a red face, but he's nowhere near as tall or broad.

"Because you've got no muscle," Gendry grumbles. "It wouldn't be a fair fight."

"Then it's settled," a third man says. "He will be an easy win, and the crowd won't get bored. Thunder should be back in a few nights, but you broke his rib when you broke your hand," the oldest man says. Arya wonders if he might be Roose, but she couldn't be sure. He had greasy hair and a hooked nose, but she could only see the side of his face.

Gendry throws his hands up. "I guess I just won't fight until he gets back, then." He takes a step towards the older man, but the man doesn't back up.

He stares up at Gendry."We could always ask The Mountain or The Kingslayer if they're willing to fight. You're not much use to me alive if you're not willing to throw a punch." Arya swallows thickly, not wanting to believe that anyone would actually let Gendry fight _The Mountain_. She shivers at the thought. The Mountain was huge, and Arya had only seen him fight a handful of times. He won every time. "They seem to understand that better than you."

"I'll fight, but I won't fight him. Nobody'll bet on him," Gendry hisses.

"You listen to me, boy. You're gonna fight him," he says, jabbing his thumb towards the scrawny boy beside Gendry, "and you're gonna win the match. Do I have to remind you of what happened last time you blew a match?" Gendry drops his arms and clenches his jaw. He takes a step back.

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm fucking sure," Gendry mutters. "Can I go now?"

The man waves his hand at Gendry, and turns away from him. "You," he points to the small guy. "Come with me." The older man leads him back around the corner and Arya sees Gendry lean against the wall, tilting his head back on it. He lets out a heavy sigh and reaches for his pack of cigarettes. Arya waits for a minute, watching him take slow drags of his cigarette.

"I tried calling you last night, but you didn’t answer." She finally says, walking away from the dark doorway. Gendry perks up and smiles at her. Arya lights her own cigarette and stands by him in silence. She wanted to ask about that man to know if he was Roose, but she wasn't sure now if she wanted to know for her piece or because she just wanted to know for Gendry. She used to have a fine line between her work and her private life, but when Gendry came in he fucked it all up.

Gendry stubs out his cigarette and Arya does the same before she tosses it into the bin. He leans forward to kiss her. Arya needed to redraw her line, but she wouldn't tonight.

“I was probably here,” he says when he pulls away from the kiss. He clears his throat. “So, Rocky IV is on tomorrow night at like 8, and if you’re not workin', did ya, y’know, wanna watch it with me?” Arya smiles at him for getting flustered. They’d been fucking for almost a month and he was embarrassed to ask her to watch a movie with him because it was the closest they'd been to a date.

“I get off work at seven tomorrow night.” Gendry smiles. “I haven’t watched the Rocky movies before.”

Gendry scoffs. “That’s probably why I didn’t answer your phone call, Arya. Deep down I knew that ya had bad taste in movies and you’re someone I didn’t want to be around,” he teases.

“I didn’t say I didn’t like them. I just said I’ve never seen them,” she shoots back. The corner of Gendry’s mouth tilts up into a smile and he shakes his head at her. “Oh, whatever,” she grins and pulls him into a kiss.

“I’ll see ya tomorrow, then?” He asks. Arya nods and Gendry grins back.

* * *

“How many shifts do you have left?” Jeyne asks as they carry dirty dishes back into the kitchen.

“I think I have three more after tonight,” she answers as Jeyne follows her back out to the dining area. The door opens and Jeyne looks at Arya with wide eyes.

“Is that who I think it is?” She whispers.

“Huh?” Arya turns to see Gendry. He gives her a small wave and sits down at the counter. Jeyne rushes over to one of her tables while Arya sets a check down. Arya’s shift wasn’t over for a few more minutes, and she couldn’t leave until her last table paid the check. Jeyne grabs Arya’s elbow and leads—more like drags—her back into the kitchen.

“Isn’t that your guy?” Arya grimaces a little. “You’re doing him, right? Or you’re at least going to?” She squeezes Arya’s arm.

“Oh my God,” Arya hisses and pulls her arm free. “He’s Shireen’s cousin.” Shireen wasn’t working tonight, but it still felt wrong to talk about.

“So? Shireen can’t seriously think that her cousin walks around wearing a leather jacket with arms that size and a bull tattoo on his neck not getting any.”

“Jesus, Jeyne,” Arya murmurs. “Most people try to ignore thinking any of that about their family members at all.” Jeyne shrugs.

“Arya.” Arya turns to walk away, but Jeyne leans up into her ear. “He has a bull tattooed on his neck. You’ve gotta ride him like one at least once,” she whispers with a laugh. Arya pushes her away and rolls her eyes.

“Good God, Jeyne, you need to get laid,” she mutters and walks out of the kitchen. Jeyne shrugs and picks up an order.

Arya’s last table brings the check up to the cash register and Arya collects her tip. She smiles at Gendry before she walks over to him. "I'm gonna change real quick and then I'm ready," she promises.

Gendry's eyes trail to the hem of her dress. "Ya don' gotta change," he suggests. Arya rolls her eyes at him and walks back to the break room. She quickly changes into her jeans and pulls on a dark sweater and her coat before she clocks out.

Gendry waits for her by the door. “You didn’t have to get me,” she starts, but Gendry shakes his head.

“We need to get snacks for the movie, and I don’ know what kind of movie snacks you like,” he protests. He reaches for Arya’s hand and Arya grabs it, lacing her fingers through his. His hand seemed to swallow hers, but despite Gendry’s size, he didn't make her feel small. He smiles and squeezes her hand.

They walk into the 7-Eleven across the street, and Gendry heads for the slurpee counter. “Are ya a Coke girl or a cherry girl?” He asks and reaches for a cup.

“Coke.”

“Good,” he says with a smile. “Can ya grab me a bag of Chex Mix?” Arya rolls her eyes playfully but walks towards the chips.

Arya finds the Chex Mix, and starts to walk back to the slurpee counter. She pauses behind a display when two girls share a whisper before the blonde one approaches Gendry.

"Hey, I know you," the girl says and tilts her head a little. The girl's hair falls in waves around her shoulders and Arya freezes. She hated feeling insecure, but how was she supposed to not feel that way when the girl attempting to flirt with Gendry had curves where Arya didn't? Gendry barely glances at the girl and reaches for another cup.

"Do ya?" Gendry bristles and pushes the lever to fill the cup. Arya lets out a small sigh of relief. Maybe he really _is_ rude to other people. She feels kind of guilty for relishing in that, though. Arya really was going to go back to Gendry, but then another part of her begged to listen to how he would react while she wasn’t with him. They still never established that they were anything serious. Technically, Gendry could do whatever—or whomever—he wanted. The girl looks back to her friend, but her friend nods at her and urges her to continue.

"You're 'the Bull' from down the road." Gendry nods. “I'm Tansy," she says, and waits for a reply. She grabs a strand of her hair to twirl it. "How's your hand? I saw you break it a few weeks ago," she asks, evidently sick of waiting.

"Good," he mumbles.

"I'm glad to hear it. Y'know, I'm at the club most Friday nights. I've seen you fight a lot. You're good," she says.

"Thanks."

"You look strong,” she says and touches his arm. Gendry takes a step away from her. Arya bites back a laugh.

She couldn't see Gendry's eyes, but she knew he had to be rolling them based on the tone of his voice. "Thanks.”

Gendry turns around to get straws and catches Arya's eye. Arya gives him a thumbs up and snickers at his pained expression.

"Could I maybe get your number?" Tansy asks.

Gendry grins at Arya. "Ask her," he says, nodding his head towards Arya.

Tansy gapes between Gendry and her friend. "What? Who?"

"Her. That's my girl."

Tansy looks to Arya and Arya raises her eyebrows. "Oh," she mumbles, "sorry.” She grabs her friend by the arm and they rush away from Gendry. Arya walks up to Gendry and he hands her one of the slurpees for the bag of Chex Mix.

"So I'm your girl now, huh?" Arya teases.

Gendry bends down to kiss her. "I'm buyin' ya a slurpee. D’ya think I buy every girl a slurpee?" He teases back.

* * *

Arya licks the bull tattoo from his throat to his ear and Gendry laces his fingers through her hair. “God,” he grunts, squeezing her hip with his other hand. Arya smiles against his ear before she bites it. He pulls away from her teeth and kisses her instead. His tongue still tastes kind of like Coke and Arya smiles. He tugs her hair just hard enough to bare her neck for him and sucks on a spot on her collarbone. She has to push him away when his teeth scrape her, reminding her of how visible that bit of skin would be.

“Don’t,” she sighs. It would leave a mark, and with suspicions going around the office and Sansa's obvious inability to keep a secret, Arya did not need one.

“Sorry," he breathes out and shifts to his knees. He pushes her shoulders down to get her on her back. She leans up against the armrest and spreads her legs for him to lay in between them. Arya reaches for his jeans and unbuttons them, but Gendry moves down and out of her grasp. He slides the tip of his tongue between her breasts and she rolls her eyes at him for avoiding them. He presses his lips to the scars on her stomach and she catches his eyes. Gendry still hadn't asked what happened again, and Arya was grateful for it. He kisses her belly button and she expects him to make his way back up, but he moves lower, and runs his hands over the front of her jeans. "Ya happy to see me?" he teases when he feels the switchblade she kept in her front pocket. Arya laughs and leans forward to pull the knife out. He grins and leans up to tug her jeans down. She sets the blade on his coffee table and moves her legs to help him pull her jeans off and he tosses them to the ground. He grins at her before leaning back down and trailing his fingers up the inside of her thigh. Arya's breath hitches.

He kisses the side of her knee, pulls her leg up to bend it, and Arya can't help but to bite her lip. She felt more vulnerable now than she had the first time she took her clothes off for him a month ago.

It wasn't that she hadn't _wanted_ him like this, but nobody had ever done it for her and now she felt like she would just make a fool of herself once he pressed his tongue to her. He kisses halfway up her inner thigh and Arya squeezes the fabric of the couch between her fingers. She takes long and slow breaths and Gendry slides his tongue all the way up her leg to the dip of her thigh. He catches her eyes and asks, "You okay?" Arya swallows thickly and nods. She shifts uncomfortably under his gaze. "Are ya sure?"

Arya releases her lip. "I'm sure," she finally says. Gendry was probably just as inexperienced with this as she was and when she realized that, it didn't seem so scary to bare herself for him.

"I've never..." he starts and traces his fingers along the back of her other thigh.

"Me neither," she blurts.

Gendry lets out a nervous laugh. "First time for everythin', then," he murmurs and kisses the inside of her thigh before tracing his fingers through her patch of damp curls. Arya can't help but squirm a little against him. Gendry grins and looks back up to her. "You're always so impatient," he teases, and circles his fingers around her clit.

"Then it shouldn’t be new to you," she mutters, shifting her hips, reminding him that she's still there, just as impatient as ever. His breath is warm between her thighs and Arya bites back the nervousness she feels. Her stomach does a few rolls before Gendry tentatively presses his tongue to her. Her hips buck up on instinct. He pulls his hand away from her thigh to hold her hips down.

He slides his tongue up and Arya thinks she could die, here and now. It's sloppy, and unpracticed, yet so very nice, and she can’t watch him anymore. She coils her hand into his hair. He slides his fingers along the dip in her thigh before bringing them up to his mouth. He pulls his mouth away to press a finger inside of her and moves his lips to her nub. She squeezes her eyes shut and sighs out a moan.

So this was what she had been missing out on.

He slides his free hand up her stomach and thrusts another finger into her. Gendry ruts his fingers in her and finds a place that steals her breath. “There,” she sighs and her legs squeeze around his head. He chuckles and pushes her thigh against the side of the couch, trying to avoid the clutch. She looks down at him and he catches her eyes with his, but he has to look away this time. He swirls his tongue around her, losing some of his original nerves and she thrusts her hand up to grab the armrest for purchase. She bucks her hips up to his mouth again and he lets out a small laugh against her. It sends a shiver down her spine and she clenches around his fingers. She pulls at his hair and he spreads his fingers, before dragging them along the spot that makes her back arch off of the couch. He pushes his other hand up her body to grab her breasts and she squeezes the armrest tighter, turning her knuckles white. He starts to pump his fingers faster and Arya moans. She spreads her legs against his mouth and drags her heel along his back. He grins when he looks up at her with his bright eyes and rubs his fingers over her pebbled nipples. She groans a little when he spreads his fingers again and she pushes her hips up to him. He presses his mouth back to her and sucks on her throbbing clit, thrusting his fingers in and out of her.“Fuck,” she hisses. She squirms under him and digs her nails into his scalp. She probably says fuck ten more times before she can't think anything else and can't feel anything else except for his tongue, and she tenses up before she finally breaks. “I’m your girl,” she cries before she can stop herself. “I’m your girl, I’m your girl, I’m...”

She lets out sharp breaths as her chest heaves. Gendry doesn’t pull his mouth away until her thighs stop quivering around his head. He sets her leg down and plants a wet kiss on her cunt before he moves to kiss her leg. He bites down on her thigh and Arya tugs his hair. “Can you say it again?” He murmurs.

Arya lets out a breathless laugh. “I’m your girl,” she huffs and Gendry grins against her leg. He wipes his mouth and chin with the back of his hand while he moves back up the couch. Arya kisses his shoulder and hooks her leg onto his hip. “And you’re my guy,” she says. Gendry nods and complies easily when she pushes him onto his back so she can kneel in between his legs. 

* * *

“Why a bull?” She asks.

“Because I like bulls,” he says. He's laying on his stomach under her and he runs his hand along her calf, causing a few goosebumps on her mostly bare body. Gendry seemed to like when she wore his shirts (and she liked when he didn't wear any shirts) so she had pulled on his shirt, that left most of her neck and shoulders exposed.

“Did you get it before or after the club?”

“It was my first tattoo. I got it after my first fight. I needed a name, and I thought it looked cool.” Arya rolls her eyes.

"What's this one?" She asks tracing her fingertips over his left shoulder blade.

"I'm not sure," he admits. "Which one is it?"

"That's what I asked you, stupid," she teases, poking her finger into his back.

"Describe it to me," he says.

Arya sighs dramatically. “It’s a stag head on a red boxing glove.”

“I got the glove for my sixteenth birthday,” he shrugs.

“But the bull was your first tattoo?” Gendry doesn’t respond for a second. If he got the stag on his sixteenth birthday, then he was only fifteen at the oldest during his first fight. Arya swallows thickly. “How old were you when you got it?” She asks.

“Old enough,” he says.

“Gendry...”

“I was fifteen.”

“Fifteen,” she whispers. Gendry shifts a little under her and turns his head to face the opposite direction.

“I needed money. My mom died and I didn’t want to go back into the system after the first house, so I lied and pretended that I was eighteen.”

“They didn’t notice that you were lying?” She sighs.

“I was big for my age. It was easy to lie.” She runs her hands down the tattoos on his back. She wants to ask about all of them, but now she feels guilty for dredging his mom’s death up.

“How long have you been fighting?”

“Eleven years.” Arya winces silently. That was only a few years away from being half of his life. Gendry reaches behind him and taps a spot in the center of his back. “That’s for my mom.” It’s a Lily flower that takes up a large chunk of his back. “She got sick.”

“I’m sorry,” Arya sighs.

“Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault,” he mutters. “Can we change the subject now?” 

Arya nods, before she stupidly realizes that he can’t see her nodding. “Yeah,” she says. They sit in silence for a moment and Gendry trails his hand to the top of her thigh. “What do you want to talk about?”

”I don’t think I really want to _talk_ anymore.” He reaches around to grab her hip and pushes her against the side of the couch while he shifts onto his back under her. His hand finds her breasts under the shirt and he smirks at her.

“Don’t you ever get tired?” she teases, but ruts against him anyway. Gendry shakes his head.

“Not of this,” he says and runs his other hand up her thigh. Arya chuckles and leans down to kiss him.

* * *

_The club targets young adults and teens who are struggling to support themselves by luring them in with cash for each fight they win. One fighter admits to starting when he was only fifteen and living on the street after the death of his mother-_

Arya stares at the sentence. Gendry had told her that in private. She knew that he wouldn't give up something from his past to just anyone. She rubs her hands along her face and backspaces. She feels shitty for even typing it out in the first place and turns her computer off. Her piece needed to be finished by Friday and Arya still didn’t know how she was going to publish it.

She didn’t want to do it anonymously because in case she planned to apply for another company, she wanted to add it to her portfolio. But she couldn’t publish it under her name. Gendry would know it was her.

If she let the _Stark Journal_ publish it anonymously, all of her hard work would’ve been for naught unless she plans to stay with the _Stark Journal_ forever. But Gendry was kind and strong and his kisses made her feel like she was on fire in the best way possible, and he would hate her if he knew.

She throws her notebook at the wall and lets out a shout of frustration.

_Fuck it. Just fuck everything._

* * *

"I'm here for my last paycheck," Arya says to Shireen at the cash register.

Shireen nods and pulls the check out of the cash register for Arya. "I'm gonna miss working with you," she sighs. "Probably not as much as my cousin will miss seeing you here, though," she teases and hands the check to Arya.

Arya smiles a little. "I'll miss you too, Shireen. I'm sure Hot Pie's can thrive without me,” she teases. “And make sure you enjoy the new hours.” Arya waves and opens the door to leave. Shireen waves back and closes the register. Arya is halfway down the sidewalk when Shireen runs out after her.

"Arya, wait," she calls. Arya turns to face her as Shireen makes it to Arya. "I'm scared for him. Gendry. Every time I see him, he's got a new cut or a bruise or a something. He broke his hand just last month. I know he fights. He won't tell me, but I've heard about them, and I can put two and two together. What if he gets really hurt? What if he... what if he dies, Arya? What if someone hits him too hard or- or..." Shireen stutters as she begins to sob.

Arya places a hand on Shireen's shoulder. "Hey, hey, it's okay. I've seen him fight, he can hold his own," Arya tries to assure. Shireen had always been sweet to Arya, and Arya hated having to watch her hurt.

Shireen shakes her head and wipes her eyes. "I don't want him to hold his own," she cries. "I want him to stop fighting." Shireen takes a few deep breaths and wipes her eyes. Tears still pool in her eyes and run down her face, but her shoulders have stopped shaking. She looks at Arya for a moment before Arya realizes what she's planning to ask. "Maybe you can talk to him, Arya. He likes you. He tells me about you all the time and he trusts you," Shireen begs and reaches for Arya's hand. Arya opens her mouth like a fish and closes it. She wants to argue that she can't, because Gendry shouldn't trust her, and who was she to tell him that he couldn't fight anymore? She'd only known him for a little over a month. "Arya, please," Shireen begs again. She squeezes Arya’s hand and wipes her eyes with her sleeve.

Arya looks at her clasped hand. "I can try," she finally says.

"Do you promise me you'll try?" Arya looks back to Shireen, her desperation for her cousin's life stirring the guilt up in Arya all over again. "Promise me," Shireen pleads.

"I promise, Shireen. I promise I'll try," Arya says. She tightens her grip on Shireen's hand. Shireen lets out a grateful smile and throws her arms around Arya's neck.

"Thank you, Arya. Thank you," she murmurs.

* * *

“Are you fighting next?” Arya asks. She has to shout over the cheers and Gendry nods.

“You’re here for a big night! The Mountain is going to fight the Viper!” Gendry responds.

Arya furrows her eyebrows, thinking that it’s probably a miscommunication among people at the club, but when the Mountain steps into the ring, the Viper follows him.

“Can speed really beat strength?” The referee hollers at the crowd. People cheer and Arya struggles to see over them in the front of the crowd. Gendry sees her trying to peer around everyone and trades spots with her. She pushes forward into another row, and she can see, but still not very well when the people in front of her keep shifting around from the hype. Arya swallows a bit of fear for the Viper. He wasn’t much bigger than Arya, just taller, and the Mountain looked like he could crush the Viper with his bare hands. The fight starts and the Viper jumps around in the ring, dodging hits from the Mountain. His heelalmost lands outside the ring, which would have ended the fight, and Arya feels sick that it didn’t. The Viper would be hurt for weeks if he didn’t win this fight quickly. The Mountain’s swings become fewer and further between and the Viper lands a punch on his jaw. Arya cheers, thinking that maybe the Viper’s strategy of tiring the Mountain out will work.

It doesn’t.

The Mountain grabs the Viper and Arya winces when he hefts him up to slam him to the ground. She knew the Viper wasn’t going to get back up anytime soon before he even hits the ground. But then his head hits the ground too hard, and when blood starts to pool and his chest stops moving, Arya knows he’s not getting up at all.

The cheers die out quickly, and the room goes silent, everyone holding their breath, waiting to see if the Viper is really dead.

A woman’s screams cut through the silence of the crowd and she runs into the ring. Chaos breaks out and Arya feels a hand wrap around her wrist and tug her. She’s frozen in place and can’t do anything but watch the blood from the Viper’s head run outside of the ring as his wife screams. She had met his wife once through Gendry, and she called Arya beautiful. Arya wants to comfort her now, but she has no idea what she would say. Ellaria just had to watch her husband’s horrific murder and Arya can’t do anything to help her.

She sucks in a breath. She can hear her heart beating in her ears. 

“Arya,” Gendry calls. “Arya, we have to go.” She can’t move. Gendry grabs her around the waist and starts pulling her away from the sight. “Someone’s gonna call the police. We can’t do anythin',” he murmurs to her. “We can’t do anythin'. We have to go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> before the episode airs and ruins us all here’s a completely unrelated to got and moderately funny thing that happened to me recently and i literally am just like ?? why god ??
> 
> there’s this guy that i met in high school and my dad hired him at my recommendation (a mistake) he’s nice or whatever but i have a boyfriend so it was already a rejection on my side, but he didn’t know about my man so he propositioned me for a smash and THEN admitted to having a choke kink and ?? i realize that none of you have ever seen me before but i’m literally this short christian girl and my eyesight is so bad in one eye that my glasses are lopsided from trying to support the thicc lens for my right eye and he works for my fAtHeR so i’m just trying to understand why he thought that ME of all people was the girl to go to for a choke kink and the moral of the story is that life is rough and you should just become a sheep herder on a remote island and that’s my overshare with the internet for the week ((six months later: oh how the turn tables))


	7. whatever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aftermath of the viper, arya and gendry talk about their pasts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> angst ((god the anGST get ready)) and im pretty sure that this chapter probably uses the word “fucking” more times here than in the entire fic put together but our beans are angry and angsty okay

 

**I wrote your name inside my window  
** **Think I spelled it wrong again**  
**I'm at my best when you look happy**  
**When you finally get your win**

**Whatever you wanted**  
**Whatever you needed**  
**Whatever, you want it**  
**Whatever, you need it**

**There came a lull and now I'm empty**  
**Think you were right about my** **friends**  
**No one really likes a quitter**  
**So be an author, not a trend**  
**(Take your time, it's all you really wanted)**

**Whatever you wanted**  
**Whatever you needed**  
**Whatever, you want it**  
**Whatever, you need it**

**I don't want you waiting**  
**So make up all of your mind**  
**Stop wasting all of your time on my plans**  
**And I don't want you praying for me**  
**'Cause it's not what I work**  
**I'm okay if only my words will make it out**

**Whatever you wanted  
Whatever you needed  
Whatever, you want it  
Whatever, you need it**

**Whatever ~ All Get Out**

"I was s’posed to fight him. The Viper," Gendry mumbles. Arya thought that he had been sleeping. They barely spoke as they walked back to Gendry's apartment and less when they made it inside. Arya hadn't even taken her shoes off and they laid in silence for almost three hours. They just watched a man die.

Arya turns away from the soft ticking of the clock in his wall. It might be better for him to talk to her when all she could do was replay the blood pooling on the ground and Ellaria screaming for her husband.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. But then that stupid fucking L- They made him fight The Mountain instead last night."

"They shouldn't have."

"I know. Oberyn was always a good fighter. He only lost a few times. But the Mountain fights dirty. He always has."

Arya hated the Mountain. Ever since his first fight when his opponent left with a broken leg, Arya had hoped that some higher power would hurt the Mountain to the point of at least stopping him from fighting. People were hurt in the fights. Arya understood that.

Gendry broke Thunder's rib just a few weeks ago, but Thunder was a fair fight for Gendry. That was different. And Arya was sure that, unlike Gendry, the Mountain enjoyed the power that came with breaking other people.

"I hate it," Gendry says, dragging his hand down his face. "Fighting. I fucking hate it." It was almost like he knew what she was thinking. Arya reaches for Gendry's cheek.

"I know."

"I want out. I just fucking want out. I try and I try and I can't get out."

"Why?"

"They don't want me to go. They only have a handful of fighters that they've kept as long as they've kept me. I've only lost a few fights, and two I lost on purpose in the hopes that they might just let me go."

"But they didn't."

Gendry shakes his head, solemnly. "They don't."

"Have you tried leaving?" Arya asks.

Gendry shifts and rolls his shoulders a little. "Yeah. Didn't work out," he mutters.

"What'd they do?"

Gendry sucks in a breath. "Bad things." _Bad_ things. Surely he knew a better way to describe it, but Arya didn't want to push him. “It makes it easy if you don’t have anything to lose, though,” he sighs.

"You have Shireen," Arya protests.

"Shireen," he whispers. "Shireen is the daughter of a lawyer and she's in school to be a doctor. The only thing that makes us alike is our eyes.”

"Don't say that. Shireen loves you," Arya hisses.Stupid bullheaded Gendry.

"I know, I know. I love her, too. I didn’t always have her, though. So after my mom, it was easy to get a couple hundred dollars just for whalin' on someone. I didn’t have anyone that could get hurt.”

“What does that mean?”

“Do you know one of the little blonde girls that fights? Mhaegan? She has a baby girl, and she tried to leave the ring a few months ago. She's been there for a few years now, and loses a lot of times, so she’s an easy win in a fixed match. They threatened her baby, and she knew better than to involve any police, so she's still fightin'. She told someone in the club that she had a baby, but if she hadn’t, then they wouldn’t be able to threaten her with someone that mattered. I’m lucky that no one knows 'bout Shireen.”

Arya clenches her jaw. What kind of sick person threatens innocent babies when a young girl just wants to live? Arya knew of Mhaegan, and she had probably watched her bleed all over the floor after a match more than once. Her stomach churns at the thought.

“Shireen and I didn't know we were family until our uncle saw one of my fights and all he could think was that I was my father's ghost."

"I thought that you didn't know who your father was."

"I didn't. He died 'fore Renly found me. I'm Robert Baratheon's son."

Arya's eyes widen a little. She had suspected it when she learned that Shireen Baratheon was Gendry's cousin—she wasn't an idiot—but she didn't think it was actually true. Robert Baratheon was Mr. Stark's business partner before his fall from grace when Arya was still in high school. He died from a drug overdose six months after Mr. Stark made him leave the company to keep their reputation clean.

"How old where you then?"

"Nineteen. Renly pulled me aside and kept askin’ me all these questions and after a few nights I asked him what the fuck he wanted from me. I feel shitty about it now, but I had seen him go 'round with the Knight of the Flowers at the club and told him I wasn't interested. Renly laughed and told me that he thought I was his nephew."

"And what did you say?" Arya asks.

"I told him to fuck off," Gendry winces. "But then he kept comin' back and I was so sick of talkin' to him that I just agreed to one of those tests. Turns out Renly was right." Arya gives him a soft smile. He had some family for the past seven years at least. Some people to love him after losing his mom. "My tattoo," Gendry starts and turns to his side. He brings up the hem of his shirt and pulls it over his head to reveal his shoulder. "I had the Stag lines put on the glove when I found out. For my dad, I guess. He used to box back in his day. Legally. Went by 'The Stag.'" The outline of the stag covered the glove and branched off into the writing beneath it. She hadn't noticed that before.

"Ours is the fury?" Arya reads aloud.

Gendry nods and—unfortunately—pulls his shirt back down. "Renly said it was somethin' he used to say after his fights," Gendry clarifies.

"Oh."

"Ya think it's stupid, don't ya? I never met him, but I got a tattoo for him and don't even know if he wanted me or not," Gendry sighs.

"I don't think it's stupid. And you don't know if he wanted you, but you also don't know that he _didn't_ want you," Arya says.

Gendry lets out a puff of laughter. "Technicalities," he teases. He rolls onto his back again and puts his arm around Arya. "M’sorry ya had to see that tonight," Gendry mumbles.

"I've seen worse," Arya mutters. After she says it, she wants to take it back, but she can't. She hopes Gendry won't question her.

"Whaddaya mean?"

Arya shrugs. She has been evasive about her past thus far, and she doesn't plan on stopping now. The horrors that gave her her scars are something only her brother knows about. And she intends to keep it that way until she knows how to tell Gendry. If she ever tells Gendry. "Oberyn didn't deserve that," she finally says.

"No. He didn't."

* * *

Arya goes to the _Stark Journal_ office the next morning. She was supposed to turn her finished article in last night before she left work, but she still didn't know whether or not she was going to publish it anonymously. She knew that Mr. Stark was getting irritated by the length of time her assignment was taking, but it wasn't easy to get the information she needed. She had to gain trust from other people, and Gendry had introduced her to a few fighters and club frequenters to get some information from them as well. She needed anecdotes for the piece so it didn't feel like whoever read it was browsing through an encyclopedia. She wanted them to be able to feel what she felt when she went into the club, and it took time to get those stories.

The secretary raises her eyebrow at Arya, probably wondering why she would come in on our day off.

She rings Mr. Stark, and sends Arya up to his office.

"Arya? You don't have to work today," Mr. Stark reminds her with a teasing smile.

Arya sits down in the seat across from him at his desk. "I know," she starts. "I actually just wanted to talk to you about my piece..."

"Arya, you were supposed to submit your final copy last night," Mr. Stark groans and rubs his forehead.

"Yes, but... you want the story that I saw last night in this article. I just need another week," she promises.

"What makes this particular story stand out, then? You've been writing the piece for nearly six weeks now."

Arya takes a deep breath. "A man died last night," she admits, barely loud enough to be a whisper. Mr. Stark looks at her in astonishment and Arya has to continue. "It was in the ring. I didn't see exactly what happened, but his opponent threw him down too hard. I left the club before any police got there, and to be honest, I don't think any police were called there. I... I know that I should have called the police, but I was scared that someone would find out that I called the police, and I didn't know what to do."

"So the police don't know that someone died there last night?"

Arya shakes her head. "I wanted to ask you, because I didn't know if I could get in trouble with the law for not reporting his death. I know that you promised me minimal immunity for watching the fights and I can't get in trouble as long as I don't partake in any of the bets or the fights, but this wasn't something that was ever considered. I've seen at least two hundred injuries since I started this article, but this is the first time a man died in front of my eyes from one of the fights."

Mr. Stark lets out a soft sigh. "I don't know for sure, Arya. Legally, his death needs to be reported to the police. I will handle that." Arya nods. She wants to protest that the people who fight in the club need to know that a raid could be coming, but she doesn't want Mr. Stark to know that she formed any relationships. She was strictly forbidden and now it was too late for her to change anything. "I'm going to call Sheriff Seaworth, and if necessary, I will discuss the purpose of your case with Mr. Baratheon to help clear this up. It wasn't your fault, Arya. I will make sure that you aren't punished."

"Thank you, Mr. Stark. I appreciate this a lot," she says, letting out a small sigh of relief.

"And you're sure that you can add this piece in by Friday this time?"

Arya nods profusely. "Yes, sir. Of course, I just need to add this and then the story will be ready to publish."

Mr. Stark gives her a gentle smile. "Good luck, Arya. I expect this piece to be some of your best work."

Arya nods and returns his smile. "It will be," she promises.

* * *

Arya walks into the club, expecting it to be nearly empty after last night's events, but to her disgust, it looks more packed than it ever has before. Like Gendry said, people came expecting a show. She sees Gendry's head over the people surrounding him and starts to walk towards him. He smiles when he sees her and Arya leans up to kiss him. He accepts her kiss, but Arya grabs his hair to keep him at her level. Someone whistles behind them, but Arya pays no attention to them, and moves to Gendry's ear.

"There's gonna be a raid tonight," she warns.

Gendry pulls back and furrows his eyebrows at her. "How do ya know?"

"My brother's a cop. You have to warn the others," she says.

Gendry nods and starts pulling fighters aside to let them know. He doesn't say anything to anyone that doesn't fight, and Arya knows it's because he doesn't care about anyone else. Some of the other fighters are his family, and frankly, Gendry probably wanted to tell everyone else in the building to go fuck themselves.

Arya starts to get antsy when nobody leaves, but Gendry tells her that if everyone starts leaving, people will notice. She nods and waits at the bar-top with him. He turns around to order a drink and Arya shifts from foot to foot. Arya jumps when she feels someone's hand pinch her ass. "What the fuck?" She hisses and turns to smack the hand away. She feels her pants pocket for the switchblade she kept with her free hand. She wouldn't use it on someone unless it was absolutely necessary, but she wasn't above holding it threateningly under the dark lights of the club.

"Hey!" Gendry shouts. He steps closer to Arya and grabs her hip. He clenches his jaw and lets out a huff through his nostrils. Arya wants to push him away to prove that she can handle the situation by herself, but Gendry had a quick temper, and she didn't think it would be worth it to try to calm him down just for her to tell the guy off anyway.

"Sorry," the guys mutters and quirks his eyebrows up.

"Oh, _sorry_? Keep your hands off my girl," Gendry growls.

"I didn't know she was your girl," the guy bites back. Gendry's hand forms a fist at his side. He's taller than the guy, but they have the same muscular frame. Arya grabs Gendry's wrist, anyway.

"Hey, it's fine," she mutters to Gendry. It wasn't _fine_ , that guy was a prick, but she wasn't going to let Gendry punch someone in the fucking face and get an assault charge because some idiot couldn't keep his hands to himself.

The guy walks away while he still has a chance and Arya rolls her eyes at Gendry. She pushes his hand off of her hip and turns to look at him.

"So as long as I don't belong to somebody, it's okay for someone else to touch me?" She snaps. She kind of liked when he said she was his girl, but she didn't like that was the only reason he had given to that guy. She was still her own person that didn't want random guys touching her. 

Gendry stares at her for a moment. "I didn't say that," he protests.

"I know that you didn't say it, but you implied it! I can take care of myself, too, you know! I'm not a fucking infant!" She has to yell to be heard over the sound in the club.

Gendry sits down in the only empty barstool beside her. He leans over to her ear. "M'sorry," he murmurs. "I know ya can take care of yourself, but I just like to..." His lips tickle her ear when he talks to her and it almost makes her smile, even though she doesn't want to. Stupid. "I just like to be there for ya," he says.

Arya nods and rests her hand on his knee. "I know," she sighs. Gendry smiles at her and presses his lips to her cheek. He had good intentions. She couldn't expect him to know exactly what she had wanted him to do. "It's okay. You were just looking out for me." He nods. 

"Do ya wanna come back to my place when we leave?" He asks. Arya nods and he gives her small smile. He pulls on her arm to pull her closer to him and she stands between his legs. She reaches for his hand and traces the lines of his palm, trying to distract herself until they could leave. Gendry is supposed to fight tonight since he didn't fight last night, and Arya hopes that if there really is a raid, it will be before Gendry has to fight. If he's caught during one, he could get arrested or worse, but if they leave before he has to, then he'll be fine. He relaxes his hand so she can trace his fingers and he presses his other hand to her cheek. He tugs her bottom lip free from her teeth and she looks back up to him. "Ya do that when you're nervous," he observes. "Don't be nervous. We'll get out just fine," he promises and smiles reassuringly. She hadn't even realized she was biting her lip and she nods. She can’t hear any police sirens, but people around the club quiet down and start to murmur to each other. One man shouts that they’ve been tipped about a raid and people start to panic. The man points to the entrance for people to start leaving and the crowd gets tighter as people try to race to the exit.

“We need to go now,” she insists and Gendry nods as he stands from the stool. Arya grabs his hand and follows him out of the crowd of people trying to get out the entrance. He pulls her into a hallway back behind the bar and behind a door that leads up to a second set of stairs where some of the other fighters are climbing.

"I didn't know this was back here," Arya says. Gendry makes her go ahead of him and releases her hand to grab her elbow. They had already established that she could take care of herself, but she knew Gendry would still want to be the protective one, so she lets him.

"Nobody does. That's the point," one of the girls in front of Arya scoffs. She pulls a sweatshirt over her tank top and it reaches a little below her shorts. "You're not supposed to let other people back here,” the girl says, presumably to Gendry.

"She's my girlfriend. I wasn't just gonna leave her to get out by herself, Mya."

"Oh. I thought she was just some girl."

Gendry's jaw clenches a little and he breathes out a huff through his nose. It reminds Arya of a bull and his nickname makes more sense. "I don't do that," he argues.

The girl named Mya shrugs and opens the door at the top of the stairs. "Go through there," she says to Arya, and points to the backdoor at the end of the hallway. Arya walks through and Gendry lets go of her arm.

"I don't do that," Gendry says when they step outside into the cool air. "Mya made it sound like I do, but I don't."

Arya shrugs. "I didn't ask.” They walk towards his apartment and Arya listens intently for any police sirens.

"I know that ya didn't, but in case ya wondered, I don't."

Arya reaches for his hand again. She laces their fingers and brings his hand up to her lips to kiss his knuckles. "I know. I thought you might for a while, but you made it clear that you don't."

Gendry smiles softly at her.

_God_. Arya had dated other boys before, but it was different with Gendry. In another life, she thinks that maybe it would be easy to love him. But in this life, Arya is a journalist, and Gendry happens to be directly involved in the article subject that she’s trying to write. She had never meant to get this close to him, and now she couldn't go back without hurting him and herself. Stupid fucking article.

They don’t hear any police sirens until they’re half a block away from his apartment.

* * *

"D’ya have to go?" Gendry murmurs against her neck the next morning. Arya pulls away to scrunch her shoulder to her neck.

"Yes," she sighs. She couldn’t let herself get roped in. If she doesn’t work on her piece today, she’s going to be even further behind. The paper goes out on Sunday mornings, and Mr. Stark spends his Saturdays scouring over the paper to edit out any mistakes and she wants to turn it in to him as early as possible.

"Stay," Gendry begs. Arya tries to think of a good excuse, but Gendry's hand sliding up her shirt and his warm breath on the back of her neck makes it harder to convince herself that she can't stay. He presses her hips into the counter and Arya relaxes her shoulder so he can kiss her neck again. "Just for a little while."

"Alright,” she says and grinds her hips back with a smirk, releasing a low groan from Gendry’s throat. “But I have to leave eventually," she grumbles. Gendry grins against her neck and grabs her hip to spin her around to face him. She catches his mouth with hers and wraps her arms around his neck. He leans down and grabs both of her hips. He pushes her up on the countertop and Arya can't help but laugh when he almost knocks her head against the cabinet. "Hold your horses," she teases.

"Sorry," he murmurs and Arya shakes her head.

She leans up to his ear. “Don’t be sorry. I like it when you get rough,” she purrs and she feels Gendry’s blush against her face.

“Jesus, Arya,” he murmurs, but keeps her revelation in mind. He keeps a viselike grip on her thighs when his head is between them and Arya’s knuckles turn white from gripping the edge of the countertop too tightly. She can't even make herself feel guilty for the marks she scratches on his back when he fucks her against the cabinet.

* * *

Gendry lets her take a shower so she can leave to go home without being sweaty and she combs out her hair and changes before she steps out of the bathroom. She smiles at him and attempts to give him a goodbye kiss, but Gendry shifts away from her. "How did your brother know to tell ya about the raid?" He mutters. Arya furrows her eyebrows. 

"What?" He looks up at her and squares his jaw. He flips something between his hands and Arya sighs she realizes what he's holding. "It's not-" _what you think_ , she wants to say before Gendry cuts her off.

"What the fuck is this?" He hisses. “It fell outta yer bag.” Arya takes a step back from him.

"It's a microcassette recorder. It records sound," she admits, softly. She had been using borrowed time with him for too long and had known this moment would come eventually. But she still wasn't prepared.

"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. I just heard my fucking voice on it," he snaps and stands from the couch. "Why d’ya have it? You a fucking cop?"

"No!"

"So, you just been spying! On the club, then? On me?" Gendry's voice raises to a shout.

_Ours is the fury._ Arya painfully remembers every story she had heard from her team of Gendry being quick to temper, remembers the fight he had almost gotten into last night for her, the anger that she had only really witnessed for herself twice, and now it was directed at her.

"No! I'm just a journalist! I was writing an article on the club!"

"So everything with me was what, then? Part of this? Part of your fucking article?" Gendry tosses the recorder to the ground. It slides over to his TV stand and Arya can't think of anything that she can say to make this better. She can't make this better.

"No," she denies, "no, that's not true!"

"Then what? I liked ya! I really fucking liked ya and then I find out that you're just- ya were using me!"

"I didn't use you!" She shouts. "I never used anything personal that you told me!" Arya wants to tear her hair out. He wouldn't listen. She couldn't make him listen.

Gendry turns away from her and he tugs on his hair. He groans in frustration and Arya reaches out to him. She touches his back, softly, and tries to speak again, but Gendry turns back to her and shoves her hand away.

"Don't fucking touch me! I'm not your story, Arya! I'm a person!" Gendry's eyes turn red with the effort to hold back tears, and Arya feels tears prick her own eyes at the sight. She never thought he was part of her story. She never thought-

"Get out! Get the fuck out! I don't-" Gendry drags his hands down his face. "If anyone found out that I told you shit..." His voice is quieter now and he trails off.

"Gendry-" She begs again. Gendry who was hers with his bright eyes and his wide grin just scowls at her. He wasn't hers anymore.

"Get out." Arya can only stare at him for a moment. He grabs her bag from by his feet and thrusts it into her chest. She grabs it and tries to form words, any words, but nothing comes out. "Get out! I don't wanna fucking see ya again! Don't come to the club. Don't call me," he hisses and her bottom lip quivers. She bites down on it. She isn't going to cry.

"I'm sorry," she whispers and Gendry turns away from her.

"I don't fucking care," he mutters and Arya bends to pick up the recorder. She moves slowly, hoping that he might change his mind and let her explain, but he doesn't say anything else and he can't even look at her.

She steps out the door and waits beside it, thinking that there's still a chance that he'll open it and let her apologize, but Gendry only locks it behind her. "I'm sorry," she whispers again, and shoulders the bag. For the first time, she leaves Gendry's apartment with tears running down her cheeks.

* * *

Arya gives herself the rest of the night to wallow before she angrily finishes her piece the next morning. It was a stupid fucking idea to ever talk to Gendry and it was her fault that he hates her. She can't spend the rest of her life being fucking miserable about it.  The harder she worked, the easier it was to ignore Gendry and his smile and his blue eyes and the way he said her name. 

"Here," Arya hisses, slamming the floppy disk with the cassette recordings and a printed copy of her piece onto Ramsay's desk.

"What?" He asks, looking up from his computer.

"Here are the all of the tapes and here's my fucking piece. Edit it before I give it Mr. Stark," she demands.

Ramsay raises his eyebrows and lifts the papers up by the edge, almost like they would bite him. Arya rolls her eyes and leaves the office as Ramsay puts the floppy disk into his computer and pulls out a headset.

She twiddles her thumbs at work all day, trying and failing to distract herself from Gendry with everything she has. She listens to Sansa happily chatter about her upcoming wedding with Jon in just a few weeks and tries to listen to Bran tell her about his son's first steps over the weekend, but she can only listen for so long before her eyes become glassy and she has to excuse herself. She was sipping on coffee and spinning around slowly in her desk chair when Ramsay pops his head over her cubicle.

"I listened to your tapes. Did you ever talk to 'The Bull'?" He asks. Arya stops spinning and sets her coffee down on her desk. She holds a hand to her forehead, instantly regretting all her spinning because of how dizzy it had made her.

Arya shakes her head. "He would never talk to me," she lies. She tries to avoid making eye contact and waits for Ramsay to walk away. He doesn't.

"Yeah, he's not much of a talker." Arya stares at Ramsay for a moment and watches him avert his eyes.

"What do you mean? Do you know him?" She prods.

"Just that everyone who has reported on the place said he doesn't talk," he lies. Arya nods. She had gotten better at noticing someone's lies since she started working with actual subjects to report on, and besides, she knew Ramsay better than she would have liked to.

"Yeah," she responds. She doesn't look away from Ramsay and he taps his hands on top of her cubicle divider. How did he know Gendry? He had never been given permission to go out in the field for this story, yet he knew the most about the club out of anyone in the office. She had assumed all along that it was because he was the head of the team and he had listened to everyone's reports over the last few months, but now she felt like an idiot. "Do you know anything about a Roose?" She tries her luck.

Ramsay eyes go wide for a second, but he shakes his head and takes a step back. "Never heard of him. Does that name mean something?" He asks.

Arya shakes her head. "I don't know. I heard it a few times. I was just wondering if the team knew anything about him."

"No," Ramsay says. Arya nods and watches him walk back into his office and close the door.

_Roose_. His name meant something. She needed to go back now and find out. She hated loose ends.

* * *

Arya doubts the club will reopen so soon after a raid, and she waits a few days before she finally returns. The line to get inside the club is surprisingly long for the events of the past week, but Arya assumes that a murder and a raid made the club even more desirable to get into. She's one of the last few people that is let into the club, and she's grateful for that when the bouncers have to stop letting anyone else in just a few people after her.

She hopes she's here for the last time, but she needs to know who Roose is. He had to run the club. Why else would Gendry say his name with as much venom in his voice as he had? And she had to know why Ramsay was frozen up when she mentioned Roose. Ramsay was never short on snide remarks, and he didn't even berate her for not following the 'Roose' trail to the answer while she wrote her piece. That had to mean something.

She sees Gendry a few times, but she's small enough that she can hide in the crowd. She doesn't see him talk to anyone all night and Arya has to remind herself that she's not there to see him. He didn't want anything to do with her. It was a hard pill to swallow, but she had to give him space. Maybe when everything blows over, she'll try to talk to him again.

(A small part of her doubts that, though.)

She didn't bring her recorder because she had to turn it in on Monday morning, but when the referee starts to talk about the raid, she wishes she would have. Apparently, someone tipped the owner of the club, and everyone got out before any arrests were made, but Arya can't hear anything else past the cheering around her. Tonight was the first time the club was open for six days. She had assumed they would have found a new location before they opened again, but after a week with no profit, she wondered if they were looking for a new location while they continued to use this building until they made their move. Still, she thought they were stupid for not shutting the club down for more time.

Arya watches the first fights through the gaps of the crowd, but she pushes her way closer to the front when Gendry steps into the ring. She stands behind a few people so Gendry wouldn't see her if he only glances at the crowd, and Arya winces when she sees his opponent. It's the short red headed boy that Gendry had said he wouldn't fight. Gendry rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck as the referee says the same rules that they had all heard at least a hundred times and yells for the fight to begin. He steps out of the ring and the small boy throws a punch. Gendry steps out of the way, but he makes no move to hit the boy. He stops stepping out of the way for hits, and lets the boy hit him a few times, before halfheartedly throwing a punch. The boy groans at the hit, but it barely slows him down.

Gendry is blowing this fight.

The boy socks Gendry in the jaw, harder than Arya, and apparently Gendry, expected because Gendry stumbles backwards for a few steps. The boy takes his chance and hits Gendry again, and sticks his leg out to trip him. Gendry falls backwards and Arya bites her lip when he doesn't even try to get up.

A man is at his side now, smacking the ground outside of the ring.

"Get up! Fucking get up, you useless piece of shit! Get up!" People around Arya start screaming along. No one expected him to lose this fight and Arya doesn't even want to think about how much money they were all going to lose from Gendry not winning. Gendry makes eye contact with the screaming man beside him and taps the ground. The referee holds up the red headed boy's arm, and Gendry starts to stand before the man grabs the back of his neck.

"What the hell was that?" He shouts. Arya ducks behind a few people to get closer. Gendry shrugs.

"I told you I wasn't gonna fight him, Roose," he hisses and pushes the man's hand off of his neck to stand up. Gendry shoves past people in the crowd and Arya sees him walk back into the hallway.

"Get back here! Bull!" Gendry doesn't turn around. The man who screamed at him was Roose. Arya wants to follow Gendry, but now she knows who Roose is. He runs the club. She wanted a last name, but she doubted she was going to get one. She studies Roose's features, and something about his hooked nose and icy blue eyes unnerves her, but she can't put her finger on it. Roose smacks the ground again and stands. He walks up to the redheaded boy and grabs his arm to drag him out into the hallway. Arya follows close behind and waits.

"You weren't supposed to win, you idiot," Roose hisses. The boy stammers out a reply and Arya hears something hit the wall and she hopes it wasn't any part of the boy. "I told you, you were never supposed to win! The Bull always wins! Always!" Roose's voice is low and seething.

"I- I- He told me to hit him! I didn't know what to do!"

"You do what _I_ say! That bastard doesn't get to tell you anything, do you hear me?" The boy doesn't respond and something smacks the wall again. "I said, do you hear me?"

"Yessir," the boy stutters.

"Good. Now go. If you _ever_ pull something like that again, boy, God himself can't save you." Roose hisses and Arya hears the boy's heavy footsteps down the hall.

She scans the crowd for Gendry and knows that he probably left. She bites her lip. If Roose was that upset at the boy, Arya is worried for what he would do to Gendry. She leaves the club and starts walking to his apartment. He didn't want to see her, she knew that, but she wouldn't be able to go home tonight without knowing that he was okay. She remembers how to get to his apartment from memory, and keeps her hand on her pocketknife while she walks. She picks up the pace of her walk, thinking about how many people Roose probably had under his thumb that might be after Gendry for the thousands of dollars that he lost them tonight. She almost walks right past him, but she turns at the sound of his groan.

Arya's breath catches in her throat. "Gendry," she cries and falls to her knees beside him. Gendry holds his hands to his stomach, but blood soaks through his shirt and in between his fingers."We need help!" She yells, hoping that maybe someone might be walking around, before she looks to his stomach. "Oh God,” she whispers.

"I said... I didn't want... to see ya... again," he argues, but he's losing too much blood to protest Arya pulling his hands away to press her own down. His hands were always so warm, but now they felt cold. He breathes heavily and his face seems to get paler with every passing second.

"I remember," Arya hisses. "But no one else is around and in case you were hoping to survive, I'm all you've got." Arya has to push down harder on his wounds to stop blood from coming out, but there's too much blood covering his shirt to know how many he has or exactly where they are. "What happened?"

"Got... stabbed." Arya bites her lip and nods. "They told me... not to blow the fight... they warned me. I didn't... listen."

Arya pulls her hands away for just a second to lift his shirt up. He has at least three stab wounds and Arya presses her hand and elbow against two of them while pressing her other hand to the third one. She needed to figure something out, and she needed to figure something out now, or else Gendry was going to bleed to death in this fucking alleyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just remember through everything in this fic, it will have a happy ending!! because i don’t find happy endings boring like some people we know
> 
> ((if it makes you feel any better i feel guilty about not writing any smut to make up for the angst but by the time i finished the rest of the chapter i was already at 6000 hecking words which is quite a few))


	8. writer in the dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> arya tries to reconnect with gendry and ends up making a difficult choice  
> TW: this chapter has a lot of blood ((like a lot))

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: this chapter has a lot of blood mentions, in case you didn’t see in the summary i want to make sure everyone is aware!
> 
> ((also i'm going to school for biology and i love the medical side of it so when i call gendry's abdomen/intestines his "stomach" just know that i'm dead inside because im not going to write that he got stabbed in the abdomen ten times and this is probably my biggest flaw as a person))

 

**Bet you rue the day you kissed a writer in the dark**

**Bet you rue the day you kissed a writer in the dark  
Now she's gonna play and sing and lock you in her heart  
Bet you rue the day you kissed a writer in the dark**

**I am my mother's child, I'll love you till my breathing stops  
I'll love you till you call the cops on me  
But in our darkest hours, I stumbled on a secret power  
I'll find a way to be without you, babe**

**Writer in the Dark ~ Lorde**

 

Gendry's blood runs through her fingers, coating the sleeves of her shirt and the knees of her pants' legs. She presses down as hard as she can and Gendry grunts under her.

"M'sorry," she murmurs. "Somebody help!" She hollers again, and turns her head back to Gendry. His eyes are glassy and spit dribbles from the corner of his mouth. "You're gonna be fine. It's fine," she mutters. "You're fine, you're fine, but you have to stay awake," she increases the pressure of her hands against him, but blood still flows and Arya wants to scream in frustration. Why wouldn't he just stop fucking bleeding?

"Arya?"

"Yeah?"

"Oh my God!" Arya looks up at the yelling man. His eyes grow when he looks at the blood seeping from Gendry's stomach. "Oh my God!"

"Just call 9-1-1!" She yells, maybe a little too harshly. But she was a little too focused on making sure Gendry didn't die for her to coddle anyone. The man takes a deep breath and runs to the payphone at the corner of the street. "You need to lay down," she says to Gendry. Gendry mumbles something to her, but Arya can't pick any of it up. He pushes against the wall and lays his head on the ground, leveling his stomach to his heart. He starts to close his eyes, but Arya nudges his leg with her knee. "You're gonna be fine," she promises again. "Stay awake. Stay awake," Gendry opens his eyes and stares at her. "Can you fucking talk to me? I'm trying to save your goddamn life," she hisses.

"Didn't know... I was worth... it to ya," he mutters. Arya grits her teeth and presses the heel of her hand against one of his stab wounds harder to hurt him on purpose. Asshole. She was trying to help him and he still didn't care. "Ah—fuck," he groans, and clenches his jaw.

"Don't say that to me. If I didn't care, I would've left you here," she hisses.

Gendry opens his mouth to say something, but the man who called an ambulance runs over to help. He grimaces and covers his nose at the stench of the blood.  

"What can I do?" He asks. Arya looks down at her hands. They were freezing from the cold air and she had read once that clean fabric or bandages would help stop blood better than hands.

"Can you go into that drugstore and get me a towel or bandages or something?" Arya asks. The guy nods, probably grateful for the opportunity to help far away from the blood and rushes into the drugstore.

"Ya can't care... about me if ya... lied to me for weeks," Gendry grumbles.

"Oh my fucking God, Gendry," she mutters. "Yes, I lied to you! I did! But I didn't do it to hurt you, and I never used anything that you told me in the article!"

"When did ya... publish it?"

"I haven't yet. It's supposed to go out on Sunday," she says.

"Can ya stop it?"

Arya hesitates. She probably could, but it was the biggest piece of her career. If she published it now though, she didn't know what would happen to the smaller people in the club. Roose would probably be fine, but could she say the same thing about Mya? Or Mhaegan, mother with the baby girl? What about the red headed boy that Gendry fought tonight?

Arya squeezes her eyes shut and takes a deep breath. "I can try to stop it," she promises. "My boss might not let me, but I promise that I will try."

Gendry gives her a curt nod and Arya looks up at the sound of slapping footsteps. The man holds out a roll of cotton gauze and Arya thanks him. He nods and unrolls the top layer for Arya to start bandaging Gendry. The blood had stopped flowing so fast and Arya sighs in relief. He had still lost a lot and would probably need a transfusion, but at least Arya wasn't going to have to worry about him bleeding out before an ambulance got here.

"Can you lift your stomach at all?" Arya asks, hoping that she can wrap the cotton over his torso.

"Prob'ly. I ran for awhile... 'fore I tripped... and had to stop."

"How far did you run?" Arya asks. She ran for at least two miles when she was—when she had the incident.

Gendry shrugs a little and lifts his hips when Arya makes it to the side of his stomach with the first layer of gauze. She quickly pulls the roll under him and tries to wrap the layers of gauze as fast as she can. Gendry grimaces and she lets him lay on his back for a few moments before she starts to wrap his stomach again.

"Dunno... few blocks, maybe... they got me by the diner." The blood on her hands from Gendry leaves traces all over the once-white gauze, but at least he had something on the cuts.

Arya nods and looks around for an ambulance, even though she knows she'll hear it before she sees it. She presses her hands back down just to be safe, and it's not long before the blood seeps through the bandages, too.

"You're gonna be fine, Gendry, you're gonna be fine, you're gonna be fine..." she says it over and over again until she hears the sirens of an ambulance, which she is convinced has to be the greatest sound in the world. She—and the guy who called the ambulance—move out of the way as soon as one of the paramedics makes it to Gendry. The woman applies pressure where Arya had been and helps her partner lift Gendry onto the stretcher. They push him into the back of his ambulance and her partner starts to check his vital signs while the woman continues to apply pressure. The woman reaches for a clipboard and her partner moves to cut away Gendry's shirt and replace the cotton gauze with clean gauze and bandages.

"What's your name? How long has it been since you were injured?" The woman fires off questions to Gendry and tries to write his answers down, but he keeps trailing off and she can't understand him. She turns to Arya and asks her the same questions. Arya answers as best as she can, but she just wants them to get Gendry to the hospital. The man tapes the bandages in place before he holds pressure on them. The woman sets her clipboard down and hooks Gendry up to an IV. "Do you know him?" She asks. Arya nods. "Are you gonna ride there with us, then? I still have questions and I'm not getting clear answers from him," the girl asks.

Arya turns to thank the man who had called the ambulance and bought the gauze and he gives her a small smile. "You're welcome. I hope he's okay," he says and Arya grabs the door handle to get into the ambulance. She sits down in a seat by Gendry's head, but he turns his head to face the other direction. The ambulance pulls away from the side of the road and starts driving towards the hospital. Arya knows that Gendry doesn't want her at the hospital with him, but she still wants to be there for when—if—he wakes up, so he has someone, even if he couldn't stand to be around Arya. She had to make sure he didn't go and die on her.

The woman continues to ask questions and scrawl down the answers. Arya realizes that she doesn't really know anything about him, and that she only knew what his last name was because Roose had used it tonight. She bites her lip. That might not even be his real surname. She knows what his tattoos mean, and that when he sleeps on his back, he snores, and that Chex Mix is his favorite snack, and Rocky IV is his favorite movie, but she doesn't know his birthday. They have to get his wallet out and check his ID. "May 1st, 1961," the woman mumbles as she writes it down. Arya furrows her eyebrows. That had to be wrong. He was only twenty-seven at the oldest, but his ID said he was thirty. Arya nudges Gendry's hand. He turns his head to look at her.

"You were born in '64 or '65, right?"

Gendry looks at his wallet in the woman's hand. He has to think for a moment. "'65," he murmurs. "It's a fake for the club."

"He was born in 1965," Arya says, louder than him. The woman shakes her head. "His ID says-"

"It's a fake," Arya says. Carrying a fake ID was fucking illegal and would probably get him a fine, at least. If he was arrested, they could just tack that charge on to whatever he already had. Arya bites her lip again.

Her hand is still on Gendry's and when he looks down and notices it, he pulls his hand away.

Arya clenches her jaw. She might have saved his life, but it didn't matter. She had betrayed him and that was something that Gendry wasn't going to move past easily.

The woman sets the clipboard down and trades places with her partner to apply pressure. The man removes his gloves and puts on another clean pair to check the bruises on Gendry's face. He asks what they're from, but Gendry clenches his jaw. He looks at Arya, daring her to say something, and she stays silent. He already had enough to get through tonight. He didn't need the police to show up, too.

* * *

Arya rotates between pacing and sitting when Gendry is rushed into the ER. The paramedics point her in the direction of the waiting room and Arya can't stand not knowing anything. She runs her fingers through her hair, but when the strands stick to her hands, she grimaces. She finds a bathroom and scrubs her hands clean. The blood rushes down the drain and Arya digs under her fingernails, too. She ties her hair up and makes her way back to the waiting room. There's a doctor addressing the people inside, and he turns to Arya when she walks back in.

“Are you Mrs. Waters?"

Arya shakes her head. "No, he's not married. I'm his..." The doctor stares at her expectantly. "His girlfriend." She wasn't really, not anymore, but she couldn't say she was his ex-girlfriend and still find out anything about him. And she had to know if he was okay.

"I'm Dr. Luwin," he says and reaches for Arya's hand to shake it. “I’m taking care of Mr. Waters, and the good news is that the bleeding has slowed down and his intestines were not punctured, so he doesn’t need surgery.”

Arya sighs softly. Now she just had to wait for the other shoe to drop. “What’s the bad news?”

“There isn’t any bad news. He’s getting a blood transfusion, so he’s more alert and the nurses are cleaning out his wounds now. Since we didn’t have the weapon, we gave him a tetanus shot to be safe. He will be in pain for a while and there will be scarring, but as of right now, he’s doing well.” Arya grins. “Once our nurses finish up, you can go in and see him.”

“Thank you,” Arya says and sits back down as Dr. Luwin smiles at her and leaves the room. She wants to be able to talk to Gendry while he is fully conscious before she leaves. She traces the grain pattern of the wooden armrests and waits.

* * *

"Hi,” Arya says when she steps into Gendry’s shared room. His roommate looks up at the door opening and closing, but quickly turns around with his Walkman when he realizes that she’s there to visit Gendry.

"Hi. What are ya doing here?” Gendry’s voice is rough.

"I-uh-I was in the ambulance,” she says and sits down in the chair by his bed.

"I remember," he grumbles. “I wanna know why you’re _still_ here.”

“I just wanted to make sure you didn't... I just wanted to make sure you were okay." Gendry tries to sit up, but the pain in his abdomen hits him and he grabs it. "Be careful," she advises. Gendry grits his teeth and huffs at her.

“Oh, I dunno, I might go run a fucking marathon, Arya,” he mutters. “Yeah, I know to be careful. I just got stabbed.” 

“I’m only trying to help,” she says.

“Well, stop trying!” Gendry hisses. 

“I stopped you from bleeding out, you know. If it wasn’t for me, you probably would’ve died.” Gendry ignores her. Arya stares at him for a moment. He huffs again and looks away from her. "I'm gonna leave, then," Arya says. She grabs her bag and heads for the door.

"Wait," Gendry calls.

Arya turns to look at him. “Yes?”

"You saved my life,” he admits. He clenches his jaw and pulls himself up to sit. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," she responds. She reaches for the door handle.

"Arya," he calls. "Were ya telling the truth? About writing about the club."

"Yes."

"And ya said ya didn't go 'round with me because of it. That true, too?"

"Yes," she sighs and turns away from the door to look at him.

"I'm sorry that I didn't believe ya the first time.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Gendry nods and Arya sits back down. He stares at her for a moment before speaking.

"Ya shouldn't have been there tonight. Ya could've gotten hurt," he mumbles.

"What?"

"’Cause of me. Someone coulda told Roose."

Arya grabs his hand. "They didn't. I'm okay. And I can take care of myself, remember?"

Gendry gives her a weak smile. "I remember."

Arya sits with him for a little while longer, but his eyelids start to droop and Arya smiles gently at him. “I need to go talk to Mr. Stark about the article,” she says.

Gendry gives her a small smile back. “Thank you,” he murmurs. Arya leans down and presses a kiss to his forehead.

“I’ll come back and see you, yeah?” Gendry nods.

* * *

Arya steps through the building doors. She really should have showered and changed first, but maybe Mr. Stark would take pity on her and choose not to publish the article. The receptionist stares at her for a while before she calls Mr. Stark and he allows Arya to come in. At least she had washed her hands while she was waiting at the hospital.

"Arya?" Mr. Stark cries and stands upon seeing her. "What happened? Whose blood is that? Are you hurt?"

"You have to pull my piece," she says, not wanting to waste any time. She realizes that she was too curt, but she’ll have plenty of time to tell him what happened after he decides not to print her piece.

"What? Arya, whose blood is that?"

"My article. You can't publish it. Sir."

Mr. Stark furrows his eyebrows, realizing he wasn't going to get an answer about the blood. "You've been working on it for weeks. I have to publish it."

Arya shakes her head. "No. This blood... it's from a man at the club. He blew a fight and he got stabbed."

"And you helped him?” Mr. Stark raises his eyebrows. “When a man was murdered last weekend, you said that you left right away."

Arya nods. "I knew this man personally," she admits. "He was in an alleyway a few blocks away from the club."

Mr. Stark stares at her. "Personally? How well do you know him?" His voice is stern, but he looks like he just wants to sigh.

Arya swallows. "Very well."

"You were specifically told that you couldn't form relationships with anyone at the club," Mr. Stark finally releases the sigh. He rests his head on his hands, digging his palms into his eyes.

"I know," Arya assures. "But I got to know him and I met several of the fighters. Almost all of the fighters that I met or that he told me about didn't want to fight anymore, but they couldn't leave. That's why he got stabbed last night. He blew a fixed match on purpose and his boss didn't like that."

"How do you know that he blew the match?"

"Because he only fights fair. The boy was smaller than him and he didn't want to hurt him. And we can't publish this article. If the club gets shut down, the fighters are going to be the only ones who get arrested and they're only fighting to survive. One of the girls works there so she can afford to take care of her baby. When she tried to leave, they told her they were going to hurt her baby. And if we choose to publish this, all of these people are going to get arrested and the people who run the club aren't going to face any consequences. I didn't write any names anywhere in the paper, so the police would have to catch the fighters in action, but with the raid on the club last weekend, they would go back without any warning this time."

Mr. Stark lifts his head. "The reason that I told you not to form relationships is because you cannot get attached to your subjects. You care about these people and it has affected your ability to do your job."

Arya nods. She didn't know any of them as well as she knew Gendry, but she didn't think that any of them deserved to be punished for trying to live. Except for the Mountain. Arya didn't care what happened to him as long as he couldn't hurt anyone anymore.

"If the club gets shut down, and the fighters are kept safe..." Mr. Stark starts. Arya looks him in the eyes. "Can you publish this after the big men are put away?"

Arya hesitates. She didn't know who all of the big men were. But she still had time to figure it out. "Yes, sir."

"Do you have any names that you can give me, then? We can end this."

Arya shakes her head. Mr. Stark was a good man, but he was too public. The club might target him if he was seen talking to any police officers. "I wish I did, sir, but I only have the information that I added to the piece," she lies. She needed to warn the fighters, first.

"Can you go back tonight and try to find out?"

"Yes."

Mr. Stark opens his top desk drawer and pulls out one of the microcassette recorders. He sets it on the desk in front of her. Arya picks it up and nods. "I'll report back to you," she lies. She wasn't going to Mr. Stark when she found out who was working with Roose. She was going straight to the Sheriff.

* * *

Gendry's blood mixes with the water in her shower and Arya grimaces. She wasn't scared of blood and had never really been bothered by it, but the fact that it was Gendry's made her stomach churn. She takes deep breaths and turns away from the drain. She washes her hair and scrubs her skin raw, not wanting a single trace of Gendry's injury on her to remind her of it. It wasn't her fault, she knew that, but she couldn't help but feel somewhat responsible when she hadn't followed Gendry immediately after he left the club. She was constantly underestimated, but if she had been with Gendry, she could have helped him fight back.

She knew deep down that he would've sent her away had she tried to follow him though. He didn't want anything to do with her before she saw him at the hospital.

Arya combs her hair when she gets out of the shower and looks at the clock. The club wouldn't be open until one tonight, so Arya lays down. She hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours, but she still struggled to fall asleep. Gendry was alright as of right now, but how could she know that he would be okay when he got out of the hospital. She eventually falls asleep, but she can’t say that she wakes up well-rested.

* * *

Arya stares at her living room wall where she had mapped out the scheme of the club. She pulls her switchblade out and twirls it between her fingers.

The _Golden Lion Gazette_ hadn't touched this story once. Her team had been obsessed with beating them on writing the story, but after another seven weeks, the story still hadn't been mentioned in a single newspaper she read of theirs. That might mean something. Tywin Lannister ran the _Golden Lion Gazette_ and Arya was sure that his riches couldn't all come from owning a newspaper. A few thousand dollars a night, though, that could make someone very wealthy. She writes his name on a Post-It note and jumps to stick it above all of her other Post-It notes on the wall.

* * *

Arya treads to the club later that night, with the recorder stashed in her bag. She checks around back, but there isn’t anyone trying to get into the club or a bouncer. It was a Saturday night, though. They should be open. She tries to open the door, but it was locked. Arya lets out a puff of breath and smacks the wall. She needs to figure out who is running the club. She has to get their names.

Arya runs a hand down her face and takes a deep breath. She remembers the back exit that she had gone through with Gendry. It’s around the other side of the club and Arya takes a pin from her hair to unlock the door. The bolt clicks and Arya turns the handle. Even if there weren’t any people here, she could still check the offices and dig through some files. Arya makes her way down the stairs, but she hears voices. She quietly walks out of the stairwell and peeks around the corner of the bar. If she leans against the wall, she could see straight ahead of her without hanging out in the open. The club is empty except for a few men sitting in the middle at a poker table. She could only see the faces of two of the five men from where they were sitting, but she probably would've recognized the Mountain even if she hadn't seen his face. Roose scratches the edge of his nose and studies the men in front of him.

"You didn't kill the boy?" Roose asks as he shuffles the cards and deals them.

"No, father." Arya's heart pounds at that voice. She knew that Roose's eyes and hooked nose had looked familiar but couldn't place them. Now she knew it was because she saw them almost everyday. Ramsay. She couldn't be too surprised to find that out, though. They had the same sadistic interests. "He's still alive. We wore masks, so he won't know what hit him." But she'll know. Ramsay had stabbed Gendry and left him to bleed out just a few blocks away from the club and Arya has to squeeze her hands together to stay calm.

"You should've killed him," another man speaks up. Arya can’t see his face, but she is almost positive that she's right about Tywin Lannister. "It would've kept him from talking."

"He's easy to keep from talking." Arya can hear the smirk in Ramsay’s voice. "The little girl in my office came down here in miniskirts almost every night and said she never got him to talk to her once." She wasn’t a little girl. She was twenty-three and Arya only wore that fucking miniskirt _once_.

"You're a fuckin' idiot if you believe that," the man next to him with greasy black hair flipping a knife between his fingers says. "If you're talkin' 'bout the little brunette with the tight ass that was here the night of the raid, he's fuckin' her." Arya clenches her jaw. She hadn't been as discreet as she should've been, but she never expected anyone in the club to actually know her. She still told everyone that her name was 'Jeyne,' but it didn't matter if Ramsay already knew who she was.

"What?" Ramsay hisses.

"Yeah. The Bull took her out the back during the raid," the man drawls.

Ramsay abruptly stands and kicks the chair out and away from him. It lands with a loud crash as Ramsay screams, "That lying whore!" Arya has to stop herself from losing her temper at the insult. She was itching to hold her switchblade, but she wouldn't dare move.

Men liked to talk.

And she needed to know what else they had planned before she made any unnecessary movements. "She told me she didn't have anything on him, but she was sleeping with him! She probably has loads on information stored away! What else?”

The greasy-haired man shrugs. “After the Viper was killed, he grabbed her and left. And when he broke his hand, she was by Qyburn with him.” Ramsay drags a hand down his face.

“You assured us that that girl wasn’t going to find anything important out. We allowed your team to write that piece because you assured us that she wouldn’t publish anything incriminating. It doesn’t matter what she publishes now, though. She knows too much. What if she goes to the police? You told us she had strict orders not to make relationships, and yet, she did,” Tywin says. “She withheld that from you. What else did she withhold?”

“I don-”

“That was a rhetorical question. I don’t want to hear you speak again,” Tywin says and stands from his chair. “So, she came here almost every night for two months, got close to one our fighters, and now she probably knows that he was stabbed. She was here the night that you killed the Viper,” Tywin starts pacing as he turns to the Mountain. “And she was probably responsible for the raid. The Viper shouldn't have died," Tywin stops his pacing. He walks closer to the bar and Arya pulls her head back around the wall. Tywin steps into the bar and doesn’t notice her. Arya watches him as he pours a glass of whiskey and takes a sip. "That was stupid, Gregor." The Mountain merely grunts in response. “All of you have been worthless this past month.”

“What?” Roose starts to protest, but Tywin raises his eyebrows and stares at him.

“Ramsay, you allowed a girl to get into the club and tear us down from the inside, and you and Locke couldn’t even kill the boy to keep him quiet.” Arya knew the name Locke. He was a recruit just like Jon, and he had the same greasy black hair as the man she had met through Jon once. “Gregor, you’ve killed a man on these grounds. We have to move buildings for the second time this year. And Roose,” Tywin drawls. “You made that stupid boy fight even though he told you he wouldn’t. Now we’re down one hundred and fifty thousand dollars and we lost one of our best fighters. It's a Saturday night and we can't have any fights because of the raid and now because of the Bull. Instead of making up for our lost profit, we're sitting here playing poker."

The men look down at their cardhands, none of them daring to defend themselves.

“I have half a mind to turn over all of your positions to my grandson, even if he is a whiny little bitch. He’s not dumb enough to make decisions about my legacy without consulting me first.” Tywin sits down and picks up his hand to look at his cards. “I’ll start.”

Arya steps away from the bar and walks through the hallway silently. She finds the small office that she had seen Roose in before, and jiggles the handle. Tywin is right. They are all idiots. The office is left unlocked. She pulls the small flashlight out of her bag and turns it on to read through the files.

She slides one of the filing cabinet drawers open, and digs through. She picks up the first file. It had a small ID in it, and Arya wondered if the club made Gendry a fake ID because they knew he had only been fifteen when he started fighting. The folder has a contract in it, covered in fine print, with the only bolded statement being “ **I consent to any and all fights. I consent to the rules that state that I cannot bite, scratch, or kick my opponent if they are on the ground. I accept that the club is not responsible for any injuries that I can acquire during a fight.** ”

 _Mya Stone - The Mule_  is the label on the tab of the manila folder. Aside from the ID and the contract, the only other thing in her file is a scoresheet with everyone that she’s fought and won or lost against. The price on each fight is scrawled in the margins. Arya puts her file back and reaches for another.

_Edric Storm - Thunder_

His file held the same contract and scoresheet and ID. Arya reaches for the next folder.

_Karl Tanner - The Free Man_

_Brienne Tarth - The Maiden Fair_

_Loras Tyrell - Knight of the Flowers_

_Gendry Waters - The Bull_

Arya pulls out his file and looks at his scoresheet. He has three. The numbers in the margins started out small with $100 for his first few fights. She flips to the last page. He had a fight with the Viper written down with a line drawn through it, but the bet on that fight was $90,000. None of his fights before Friday night had more than $100,000 resting on them. Of course they would place an extra $50,000 on a fight that he explicitly said he wouldn’t win.

Arya puts the files back and gently closes the drawer. She moves to the drawer above it.

_Jaime Lannister - The Kingslayer_

Arya raises her eyebrows. Tywin allowed his son to fight?

_Oberyn Martell - The Viper_

His ID was gone, but his consent form was still in the folder. His scoresheet was missing as well.

 

_Mhaegan Miller - The Whore_

Arya’s jaw clenches at the name. There was a small picture in the back of the file of a baby. Arya assumes that they showed the picture to Mhaegan when they threatened her baby.

_Lyanna Mormant - The Bear_

Arya looks at the picture. The girl can’t be older than sixteen. Her scoresheet only has a few fights recorded on it.

_Olly Russell - The Archer_

Arya didn’t think he was any older than Lyanna and he also only had a few fights recorded. 

She shuts the drawer and starts to open the next one, but it closes too fast and the metal hinges make a loud crunching noise when it slides back into place. Arya takes a deep breath and stands up slowly. She flicks the flashlight off and quietly leaves the office.

"What was that?” She hears Ramsay ask from out in the bar.

"What?" Locke asks. "What noise?"

"SHH! Did anyone else hear that?" Ramsay asks again. Arya starts walking faster to the stairwell.

“I didn’t hear anything,” Roose says. Arya takes a step up the stairs.

_Creeeaak_

Her breaths are silent, but she holds them in anyway.

"There's someone out there,” Ramsay says and she hears his chair being pushed out.

Arya runs up the staircase, taking her steps two at a time. She almost trips on the last step, but she catches the railing. She pushes open the door and falls through it just in time for him to open the door at the bottom of the steps.

"Hey!" Ramsay shouts at nothing. Arya runs from the bar and out into the alleyway, not wanting to think about the chance she would take just to look behind her. Arya turns around the corner of a building two blocks away and breathes deeply. She peeks around the corner to check to see if anyone is chasing her, but no one is behind her. She pulls her switchblade from her jeans and flicks the blade out before pulling it up her sleeve. She wasn't entirely sure where she was, but if she just kept walking along 42nd Street she was bound to find the police station somewhere.

She couldn’t remember if Jon was working tonight or not, but she hopes that he isn’t. She had all of her tapes on file at the office if Sheriff Seaworth needed them, but she hoped that her tape from tonight would be a good start. Ramsay and the man named Locke admitted to stabbing Gendry on her tape, and Roose admitted to conspiring with them. The Mountain was also said to be responsible for killing the Viper by Tywin Lannister, and the Mountain hadn’t defended himself. It was a start.

Arya sits in the front of the police station while waiting to speak to the Sheriff. She crosses and uncrosses her legs and taps her foot until she is finally told that she can go back. Arya shakes Sheriff Seaworth’s hand. “I’m Arya Snow.”

“Snow?” he asks. “Is there any relation to Jon Snow?”

“He’s my brother.”

“Well, what brings you here tonight? Jon is off tonight.” Arya lets out a small sigh of relief.

“I have information for a case that you might be interested in hearing,” she says and sets the recorder down on the table.

* * *

“Hey,” Arya says the next morning. She spoke with the Sheriff for hours and then she had to go home and take a nap before she could come up to talk to Gendry. She sits down in the chair by Gendry. The man that he was sharing the room with wasn’t in the room and Arya is grateful because she needs to talk to Gendry privately.

He gives her a small smile. “Hi.”

“So, I was able to pull the article yesterday,” she says.

“That’s good.”

Arya nods. _Just rip the bandaid off._

“And I went to the police,” she says slowly. His smile drops.

“You _what_?” Gendry hisses through his clenched jaw.

“I went to the sheriff and I turned in a tape of Ramsay and Locke admitting to stabbing you and told him where they were. My brother called this morning to tell me that they were arrested last night."

“Great. That’s fucking great that ya took it upon yourself to go to the police, Arya,” he mutters. Arya furrows her eyebrows. She didn’t think he would be very happy with her, but she didn’t think he would be angry with her, either.

“Why are you upset? Ramsay and Locke have an attempted murder charge against them. They admitted to it on my tape,” Arya says.

Gendry grabs his sheet with his right hand and yanks it back. His left hand was cuffed to the railing on his bed. “I wasn’t gonna say anything because I didn’t want ya to worry, but this is your fault!” He shouts. Arya bites her lip. “When I get discharged, I have to go straight to the police station for fighting without a permit. Did ya forget that fighting was illegal, too?”

“I didn’t—fuck, Gendry—I... “ Arya rests her head on the palm of her hand. Sheriff Seaworth had said that he wasn’t going to dig too deep to find the fighters because he had known about the ring for years, but could never catch the men who were really in charge. He knew that most of the fighters had wanted to leave, but couldn’t. The files had all of their names that Davos probably ran through the system, and if one of them popped up, he would probably arrest them for the fight. She wishes that she would’ve just taken the files last night, but there were far too many to stuff into her bag and carry out of the club with her. But she didn't have any time to make a real decision about any of the files before Ramsay heard her. And how would it be fair for her to only take a few of the files to save some fighters if she couldn’t save them all?

But Gendry ran away from a foster home when he was fifteen and had already been admitted to the hospital for being stabbed and it was probably in the system that he had a fake ID now. Sheriff Seaworth didn’t have to _dig_ to find him.

“Why would ya go to the police, Arya? I asked ya not to publish the fucking piece because the fighters were going to get arrested and then ya go to the _police_? I can’t—I don’t fucking get it!”

“I was just trying to help! I thought that if the club was shutdown, then the fighters would be able to get out of the ring and try to lead normal lives,” she protests. She reaches for Gendry’s right hand, but he pulls it back.

“Yeah, Arya. We all wanted out. That don’t mean we want to go to fucking prison!” Gendry shouts.

"Mommy," a child says from the hallway. Arya turns to look as the woman leans down from the door she was opening. "Why is he handcuffed?" The little boy asks as he points to Gendry’s hand. The woman turns around and a blush coats her cheeks. Gendry clenches his jaw and covers his wrist with the blanket again.

"I... I am so sorry," the woman mumbles and pushes her son’s arm down to stop him from pointing. She drags her son into the room across the hall. Arya stands to close the door to Gendry's room. She turns back around to face him.

"I can't stand to piss. I can barely use my right hand because they stuck an IV in it and cuffed my left," Gendry hisses. "I can't smoke because then my stabs won’t fucking heal. And now everyone who walks by thinks I'm a criminal. So thanks, Arya," he hisses. "Feel free to leave."

"The club was going to get shut down, eventually. There's no proof that you actually fought except for your injuries. But that could be from Locke and Ramsay. What if there was a raid when you were in the middle of the fight? You would've been arrested on the spot."

"I'm still arrested, Arya. I just can't go anywhere because my stomach starts bleeding when I move too much,” he reminds. Arya wants to shake him. She never meant for him to get arrested, but if he hadn’t been, he probably never would have gotten an out for the club.

"I know you want me to apologize. I'm not going to fucking apologize. You did this for eleven years. How many other fifteen year olds do you think they let start in this life? You guys move locations to avoid a trail, people die, the Viper _died_ , and you're upset because you might have to serve time? The club is over. Tywin Lannister is going to get arrested, Roose is going to get arrested, the men who stabbed you, Locke and Ramsay, got arrested. You were never going to get out of this without dying or getting arrested or _getting stabbed_."

"If I go to prison, I'll die in there. Roose lost a hundred fifty thousand when I blew that fight and I got stabbed for it. What do ya think they'd do if they found out I was the reason the club got shut down."

"You're not going to die! I don’t expect you to be grateful for this, but you don’t get to be angry with me for trying to save your life, either! There’s no way that you ever thought you could get out of the club without having to go to jail or something. You said it yourself! They don’t just _let_ you leave.”

"How do ya know I’m not gonna die in prison?” Arya bites her lip. Gendry squeezes his eyes shut and sighs. He’s right. She doesn’t actually know, but she can hope.

“I didn’t think you were gonna get charged,” Arya admits. “I just wanted to protect you.”

“Great. Thanks. That don’t un-arrest me,” he hisses.

Arya blows air out of her nose harshly. “You’re not going to listen to me, are you? Call me when you’re ready to understand why I did what I did,” she huffs and steps outside of the room.

“Don’t fucking hold your breath,” Gendry huffs back as she shuts the door.

* * *

Arya talks to Dr. Luwin about Gendry for a few minutes. He would be discharged in a few days, maybe a week depending on how well he can move around on his own. He would have to go straight to the police station after getting discharged, so Dr. Luwin wants his wounds to be healing properly before releasing him. Arya nods and thanks him for the information. She starts walking out of the waiting room and runs into Shireen. Shireen stumbles back, but catches herself by grabbing the door.  

“Arya?” Shireen asks. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to check on Gendry.”

“Why? He told me last week that you two were broken up.”

Arya shrugs. “Yes, well, I…” she didn’t want to frighten Shireen by bringing up that she found him in that alley, but she didn’t know what else she could say.

"You promised me you would try to make him stop fighting, and the next thing I know, I was called at five in morning yesterday because my cousin was stabbed in an alleyway on Friday night," Shireen accuses. 

"That wasn't my fault."

"He got stabbed because of the club," Shireen whispers angrily. "You promised me-"

"I'm the one who stopped him from bleeding out in that alleyway," Arya hisses. "He got stabbed and I found him."

"He wouldn't have been stabbed if you had tried to-"

"I can't make him do anything, Shireen!" Arya shouts as her temper gets the better of her. Some of the people waiting look up at her as she breathes heavily. Arya grimaces and her face grows a little pink from embarrassment. She turns back to Shireen. "Gendry won't speak to me. He fucking hates me, so I'm glad that you're here now to egg him on, too."

Shireen pauses. "Why won't he speak to you?"

Arya bites her lip. “Because I tried to help him,” she sighs. “I guess I fucked that up, too.” Shireen stares at her for a moment, waiting for her to elaborate. “I need to go,” Arya says and leaves the waiting room.

She didn’t do the wrong thing. No one is going to get out of the club unless Tywin is arrested and Arya just happens to be the only one with the proof the police need to arrest him. She feels guilty that some of the fighters are going to get arrested, but everyone signed the consent form to fight, so she didn't think they would be charged for assaults. Right now, Arya wishes she had went to law school instead of becoming a journalist so she had a fucking idea on what was going to happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi sorry this took a lot longer to post because my brother's friend who's stationed in britain came home for the week?? he wanted to surprise us and we haven't seen him since my brother's 2018 new year's party so it was exciting and also there's only one chapter left!! it will probably take a hot minute to get the final chapter up tho bc im not tryna pull a game of thrones and leave a ton of plotholes so im currently rereading all of the previous chapters and making sure any question that i think might be important to any of y'all is getting written down so i make sure its resolved in the last chapter !!


	9. don’t take the money

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> arya finds out what will happen to everyone ((last chapter!!))

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really hope you guys like this ending!! i struggled a little with it tbh because i really wanted to give this a strong ending that does all of it justice, but you are the judges of that!! enjoy! (also if you haven't heard this song that this story and this chapter was named for i highly recommend it! it is a bop and i love it!) ((ALSO was anyone going to tell me that lorde did a cover of this song or was i supposed to see that on youtube at 2am last night myself?))

 

**Somebody broke me once**   
**Love was a currency**   
**A shimmering balance act**   
**I think that I laughed at that**   
**And I saw your face and hands**   
**Coloured in sun and then**   
**I think I understand**   
**Will I understand?**

**Will we fight, stay up late?**   
**In my dreams I'm to blame**   
**Different sides of the bed**   
**Roll your eyes, shave my head**   
**Now we're stuck in the storm**   
**We were born to ignore**   
**And all I got is a chance to just sit**   
**(I'm in love and you've got me, runaway)**

**You steal the air out of my lungs, you make me feel it**   
**I pray for everything we lost, buy back the secrets**   
**Your hand forever's all I want**   
**Don't take the money**   
**Don't take the money**

**I slept on my own those nights**   
**Was still in my parents house**   
**And I cut off my t-shirt sleeves**   
**And claim a new continent**   
**'Til I saw your face and hands**   
**Covered in sun and then**   
**I think I understand**   
**Will I understand?**

**Will we fight, stay up late?**   
**In my dreams I'm to blame**   
**Different sides of the bed**   
**Roll your eyes, shake my head**   
**Now we're stuck in the storm**   
**We were born to ignore**   
**And all I got is a chance to just sit**   
**(I'm in love and you've got me, runaway)**

**You steal the air out of my lungs, you make me feel it**   
**I pray for everything we lost, buy back the secrets**   
**Your hand forever's all I want**   
**Don't take the money**   
**Don't take the money**   
**You steal the air out of my lungs, you make me feel it**   
**I pray for everything we lost, buy back the secrets**   
**Your hand forever's all I want**   
**Don't take the money**   
**Don't take the money**

**When you're looking for your shadow**   
**Standing on the edge of yourself**   
**Praying on the darkness**   
**Just don't take the money**   
**Dreaming of an easy**   
**Waking up without weight now**   
**And you're looking at the heartless**   
**Just don't take the money**

**You steal the air out of my lungs, you make me feel it**   
**I pray for everything we lost, buy back the secrets**   
**Your hand forever's all I want**   
**Don't take the money**   
**Well, don't take the money (I'm in love and you've got me, runaway)**   
**You steal the air out of my lungs, you make me feel it**   
**I pray for everything we lost, buy back the secrets**   
**Your hand forever's all I want**   
**Don't take the money**   
**Don't take the money**

**Just don't take the money**   
**Just don't take the money**   
**Just don't take the money**   
**Just don't take the money**

**Don’t Take the Money ~ Bleachers**

“You were there last night. I know it was you”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” The lie slips past Arya’s lips without her giving it a second thought.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. You think that no one can touch you because you carry that little pigsticker and your boyfriend’s big and scary, but let me tell you something. He’s stuck in that hospital bed with three extra holes in him and when he gets up, he’s coming in here. You don’t even know what we could do to him. And to you.” Arya clenches her jaw and stares Ramsay down. She tilts her head at him and tries not to breathe too much through her nose. Ramsay’s breath would make her sick otherwise.

“You’re not gonna do anything,” she says. She wasn’t afraid of him or Roose or Tywin or Locke or the Mountain. She might not he able to do much damage with her ‘pigsticker,’ but she could outrun any of them, any day of the week, considering they couldn’t get very far when they were stuck in cells.

“You wish I wouldn’t do anything. That stupid boy never should’ve talked to you. We have plenty of people looking for someone new to crush while they can’t fight.” Ramsay whispers.

“Like infants?” She asks. “I know about Mhaegan Miller. And her baby.”

Ramsay grits his teeth together. “You don’t know shit.”

“I know more than you think. I know the Viper’s real name is Oberyn Martell, and I know the Mountain killed him. And I have a tape of you saying that you stabbed Gendry. You’re better off if you don’t give me over to someone to _crush_.”

Ramsay breathes in sharply. “You better forget about that tape. Gendry would do much better in jail if we’re not there with him.”

“Arya,” Sheriff Seaworth says from the doorway of a room at the end of hall. “C’mon. You’re not supposed to be talking to this lot,” he reminds and Arya takes a step back. She nods and walks towards him.

“Sorry,” Arya says and sits down with Sheriff Seaworth. She pulls her floppy disks with her recordings and hands them to him. Technically, she had already cut all of the names and anything that Gendry said each time she uploaded the files to the disks before she brought any of them to the police, so she couldn’t be withholding any evidence.

“I don’t have a tape from the night that the Mountain killed the Viper, but I was there that night. I saw it and I can-”

“You weren’t there,” Sheriff Seaworth interrupts.

“But I was-”

“No. You can’t ever say that you were there. All I know is that you had permission to watch the fights to write an article. I don’t know anything else. I don’t know what you saw.”

“But I can testify. I know that the Mountain-”

Sheriff Seaworth shakes his head. “Stop it. I don’t want to hear this. Your tape of Tywin admitting that it was the Mountain should be enough, and if it isn’t, Gregor Clegane already had a warrant for his arrest before we brought him in.”

“What for?” If it had anything to do with the club, she wanted to know.

Sheriff Seaworth grimaces. “He was wanted for sexual assault,” he says softly.

“Oh.”

“We couldn’t find him for a few days, but then you brought in the tapes and we knew his name already. You helped bring him in for two things.” Sheriff Seaworth gives her a small smile. Arya smiles back, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. She wasn’t doing any of this for praise. She was doing this because she wanted to keep Gendry safe.

* * *

"Where's your guy, Arya? Jon said you were gonna bring him to the wedding when we gave the venue the final guest count!" Sansa asks. She smooths a bit of her hair down.

Arya grimaces. She had kind of assumed that Jon would’ve already said something to Sansa. "He's not gonna make it," she murmurs. "Your hair looks so pretty. Let's get you in your dress, yeah?"

Sansa nods a little. "Did something happen?" She asks and pulls her shirt over her head.

"Yeah, he—ah..." _He got arrested_. "We're broken up,” Arya says and grabs the dress from the hook it was resting on.

"Did he find out about the article?" She asks as Arya pulls the dress off its hanger. Arya motions for Sansa to turn around. Before Arya can answer, Jeyne Poole, Sansa's Maid of Honor, comes back into the room with her hair done up in a braided bun. "You're next," she says to Arya, barely sparing her a glance.  Jeyne steps closer to Sansa and keeps moving closer until Arya has no choice but to move out of the way and give the dress to Jeyne. Arya goes into the next room where Sansa's wedding hairdresser starts to style Arya's hair into the same bun that Jeyne picked for the both of them.

Contrary to Jeyne's belief, just because Arya didn't like to wear her hair into the fancy styles that Jeyne did, that didn't mean she was incapable of picking her own hairstyle.

"I think your hair might be too short," the old woman named Shella mumbles, but still attempts to pull all of it up to the top of her head to start the braid. Arya lets out a small sigh. The woman pulls tightly at a chunk of hair at the bottom of her head. "This piece won't stay," she grumbles, and pats her pockets. "I ran out of pins. Can you hold this here like this?" Shella asks. Arya reaches her hand back and grabs the hair. "I need to run out to my car."

"Okay." Arya holds the base of the braid up and waits.

Someone knocks on the door. "It's Jon," he says.

"You can come in," she replies. "I'm just getting my hair done." Jon steps through the door and Arya looks up at him.

"You look nice," he says, softly. Arya gives him a small smile.

"Thanks."

"Davos—Sheriff Seaworth—called me this morning. Tywin Lannister was finally arrested last night. He got out on bail right away, but he has a trial soon. I just wanted to let you know, but I can't tell you anything else that isn't public information."

"I understand," Arya starts, but Jon leans against the table in front of her and speaks again.

"So I would appreciate it if you only asked me yes or no questions so I can nod or shake my head." Arya grins at him.

"Is Gendry on bail?" He had been discharged from the hospital last week, but Arya only knew because she called Shireen (albeit guiltily) and bullied her into telling Arya about how Gendry was doing.

Jon nods.

"Do you know if he has a trial soon?" Jon nods. "When?"

"Yes or no, Arya," he reminds.

"Right, sorry," she grimaces. "Are Roose and Ramsay on bail?" Jon shakes his head. Locke and Ramsay were the first to be arrested, but Roose had only been arrested last week. "And Roose?" Jon gives her a small smile and shakes his head. "The Mountain?" Jon's smile grows.

"He contacted his brother to pay the bail, and Sandor told him he wasn't even worth five bucks."

Arya laughs. She's glad that Roose, Ramsay, Locke, and the Mountain aren't out on bail yet. She wanted them far away from Gendry before their trials.

Arya knew that before she went to talk to the Sheriff, Jon had been working diligently to try to track down the owners of the club to hopefully earn more respect at the station, but she didn't feel too guilty about stealing his thunder when she learned how far behind her he had really been. Jon didn’t have any names and was even working with one of the men running the club.

“Did anyone else who was fighting get arrested?” Jon hesitates for a moment. He gives her a slow nod. "Did you guys find the files with all of the fighter's names and scoresheets." Jon nods. "Does Gendry still have charges against him?" Jon nods again and gives her a sad smile.

Arya sighs. She knew that Gendry would have needed a charge against him to be arrested, but she hoped that Gendry might have gotten lucky and had the charges dropped after Sheriff Seaworth looked over the consent forms.

"I'm sorry about Gendry, Arya." He reaches forward and pats her shoulder.

"What charges does he have?" Arya asks. Jon grimaces.

"Arya, I can't tell you that."

"Sorry. Thank you, Jon. I know that it's your wedding day. The last thing you want to be doing is talking about my criminal ex-boyfriend."

Jon pats her shoulder. "I love you, little sister. I don't want to see you upset,” Jon says. A smile spreads across his face. “Though I ought to just buy a blindfold for that problem,” he teases. Arya fakes scoffs and pushes his hand off of her shoulder. Jon laughs and brushes a piece of hair behind her ear. Arya realizes with a grimace that at some point she had stopped holding her hair up and tries to gather it all up as Shella walks in the room again.

Jon sees her and gives Arya one last smile. “I'll keep you updated as well as I can, but I think you should just try talking to him yourself."

"What makes you say that?"

Jon shrugs a little. "When we were letting them make their calls, he started to punch in your phone number before he changed his mind. It might have been an accident, but he hesitated for awhile before he decided to call Shireen instead."

"Really?"

Jon nods. Arya told him to call her when he was ready to listen. He hadn't called her, but he almost did. That was better than nothing. Arya smiles at him and Jon leaves the room.

The wedding goes about as perfect as any wedding can. The ring bearer, Sam’s little boy, cries instead of walking down the aisle, but the rings still make it to Jon and Sansa. Sam nearly trips walking down the aisle, but Arya holds his arm so tight, it’s a wonder that she doesn’t fall with him instead of steadying him. And somehow the bouquet heads straight for Arya before Jeyne jumps in front of her. Arya considers grabbing it just to spite Jeyne for the pain in the ass she had been during all of the planning for the wedding and the bachelorette party, but Arya decides that she probably doesn’t need the romance so soon after everything. And the best man’s, Jon’s best friend from the Air Force, underage brother mooches alcohol from anyone over twenty-one willing to give it to him.

She falls asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow for the first time in weeks.

* * *

The next morning, Arya sees Jon and Sansa off at the airport, and assures Sansa that the _Stark Journal_ will be just fine without her for the week. Arya makes it back to her apartment and tries to watch some show on TV, but Sunday’s usually didn’t have anything good on to watch. She used to not have the problem of being bored because she worked at the diner, and then she met Gendry and spent all of her time with him after quitting the diner. Then she had to finish the article and spent time going over everything she knew with Sheriff Seaworth.

Arya looks at the clock. It was noon. She could try to call Gendry and talk to him. If Jon told her the truth--and her brother had no reason to lie to her--then Gendry might be able to explain herself. She calls his phone number, and he doesn’t answer. She considers leaving a message, but she isn’t sure what she’d say.

She stares at her ceiling for a moment. If Gendry was out on bail, and so was Tywin, he probably wouldn’t have went back to his apartment. Arya digs through her desk drawer for her phone book. She had Shireen’s phone number from when they worked together at the diner and Gendry might have gone to stay with her. He probably still needed help doing things. She finds the number under the Bs, and dials it.

“Hello,” Arya hears Shireen’s groggy voice on the other line and remembers that while she had woken up at eight to drive her brother and sister-in-law to the airport and take Jon’s car back to his apartment, to other people it was probably their day off and they wanted to sleep in.

“Hi, Shireen, it’s Arya.” Shireen stays silent on the other line. “Is Gendry there?” Arya asks.

Shireen sighs. “Yes.”

“Can I please to talk to him?”

“He’s in the bath,” Shireen says, too quickly.

“No, he isn’t. He can’t take a bath until his wounds are closed up.”

Shireen huffs. “Fine. I’ll ask him, but he might not want to talk.”

“Thank you,” Arya says.

“Yeah, yeah,” she mutters and Arya hears her pull the phone away from her ear. She covers the mouthpiece, and Arya can hear muffled voices on the other end.

“Gen, it’s Arya. She wants to talk to you.”

Gendry doesn’t respond for a while. Arya can picture the face he makes when he’s thinking and she waits. “Alright, fine,” he says and takes the phone. “What?” He snaps. Arya isn’t taken aback by his tone, and is a little impressed that it didn’t involve a ‘what the fuck do you want?’ at the very least.

“I wanted to know how you were feeling.”

“Fine.”

“And I heard that you were out on a bail,” she says.

“Yeah.”

Arya bites the edge of her tongue. She just needs to apologize.

“I’m sorry.”

“Great.”

Arya shakes the phone for a moment. "I am trying. I am trying to apologize and explain myself, and you don’t." She wants to yell at him or cry or something, but she takes a deep breath and Gendry sighs. “I'm sorry," she says, again.

"D'ya really mean that?"

Arya puffs out a slow breath and the small piece of hair in front of her mouth blows to the side. "I wouldn't have said it if I didn't mean it," she says.

"Well, ya've said things ya didn't mean before," Gendry mutters.

"I know that I lied," she admits. "But I never meant to hurt you. My team has been trying for months to get the story on the club, but I didn’t use you. And I didn't do anything with you just because I wanted information. I never meant to go to the police, but then you got hurt and I thought I could help you.”

"How do I know ye’re telling the truth? Everythin’ ya've told me since you met me was a lie."

"I lied when I said my name was 'Jeyne," but that's it to you. I lied to other people. I lied to the people who came to watch the fights and some of the other fighters, but I didn’t really tell you lies any more than I just didn’t tell you the truth.”

"Ya never told me anything about ya, and I was stupid to let ya in. I trusted ya," he hisses.

"I never told you anything because then it would've had to have been a lie. And I couldn't just tell you that I was undercover because I didn't know if you would tell anyone else."

"Ya mean I would've stopped giving ya information."

"I already told you I didn't use anything you said!" Arya shouts.

"I don't believe ya!” Gendry shouts back.

"Fine, then, don’t trust me! I started lying when I first met you, and then I never thought anything would happen! We hooked up and then I thought maybe you were that kind of guy who just forgot about it, so I didn't think I needed to tell you anything. And then we hooked up again and I thought maybe I should tell you, but then you told me you liked me and I liked you and I didn't want to ruin it!"

"Well, ya still ruined it! Maybe if you had told me-"

"You know that's not true. You never would have accepted it," she sighs. "I said I was sorry. Forgive me, don't forgive me, I don't care, but this is the last time I'm going to fucking apologize," Arya mutters. "I'm sorry that I didn't tell you about the article. And I’m sorry that I went to the police without talking to you about it, but I never did anything to hurt you.”

Gendry stays silent on the other line for a while, but she knows that he heard her because she can still hear his labored breaths.

“I--I just want some time to think,” he says. “My court hearing is in a few weeks. And ya can come, if ya want,” he says, slowly, almost like he can’t believe that he’s actually saying it.

“Yeah, if you just--uh--let me know when. And I’ll come for support,” she promises. Gendry gives her the time and date and she writes it down. He still didn’t sound too happy to be talking to her, but it was a start if he was going to let her go to his trial for moral support.

* * *

“The charges have been dropped.”

Gendry raises his eyebrows. “The charges are what?”

“The law in Illinois is that two consenting adults cannot be charged for fighting as long as no bystanders are injured and no surrounding property is damaged during a mutual fight.”

“So, the charges are just gone?”

“For fighting, yes. You still had a fake ID, but the maximum penalty on that for a first-time offense is only one year in prison,” Renly says, and gives Gendry a pat on the back.

“A year? _Only_ a year?” Renly nods.

“ _Maximum_ ,” he emphasizes. “You were facing an assault charge, nephew. Don’t get too upset about having to serve a year. You could get twenty-four hours of community service as a minimum.”

Gendry runs a hand down his face. Shireen reaches for his hand. “You’re going to be fine,” she insists. “Uncle Renly is just preparing you for the worst.” Shireen shoots their uncle a look and Arya smiles a little at Shireen’s support for Gendry. She walks over to the three of them and Shireen scowls a little. Gendry shakes his head at Shireen. “I asked her to come,” he assures.

“Oh,” Shireen turns a little pink. Arya knew that Shireen is not naturally rude, but she was trying to protect her cousin. “Sorry,” she murmurs.

“It’s okay,” Arya gives her a small smile. Gendry smooths down his shirt. He was wearing his light blue button down, and Arya nearly blushes at the good memory she has of wearing that shirt, but she doesn’t say anything. She sits with Shireen while Renly and Gendry talk to the judge inside of his office, and Shireen reaches for Arya’s hand for support at one point. Arya lets her.

Gendry and Renly leave the office with smiles on their faces and Shireen raises her eyebrows.

“I have a fine to pay and an indefinite license suspension that I’ll have to appeal at some point, but I don’t have a car, so that’s not that big of a deal,” he says. Arya lets out a sigh of relief. Shireen wraps him in a tight hug, but when Gendry grunts, she pulls back.

“Sorry,” she cries. “I forgot, are you hurt?” Gendry shakes his head. He turns to Arya and gives her a small nod.

“Thank ya. For coming,” he says.

Arya nods back. “Yeah, of course,” she replies. “I’m glad to hear that you aren’t going to jail.”

Gendry nods back. “Yeah,” he says. “Me, too.”

* * *

Arya and Gendry continue to talk to each other on the phone only for a few weeks, and she tries to give him advice on how to get his scars to heal and when he tells her that he’s not having much luck finding a job, Arya calls in a favor with her old bosses from high school.

“The ginger told me I was grumpy bastard and would fit right in with the Hound,” he tells her after his first day.

Arya lets out a small laugh. “Yeah, Tormund is a little more cheerful than Sandor,” she says.

“Thank ya for talking to them, Arya.”

“You’re welcome,” she breathes out.

“It ain’t a bad job, either. I can’t lift the heavy shit yet, but I can tell people where to find different screw heads in the store.”

Arya grins. “And it’s probably better for me to do something new that doesn’t involve getting my face all bruised up on Friday nights,” he sighs.

“It’s a nice face,” she teases. “You wouldn’t want to ruin it.” Gendry chuffs out a small laugh.

* * *

Tywin is the first to be convicted. Not only did he admit to owning the club and having Locke and Ramsay stab Gendry on Arya’s tape, but his men had no qualms about testifying against them after he made sure no one could bail them out of jail before their trials. He didn’t pay any taxes on the money he brought in from the club, he bought the forged IDs for all of the minors, and was charged for attempted first degree murder, and was facing at least sixteen years in prison. Arya calls Gendry as soon as she sees it on the news.

* * *

“Tywin is in prison,” Mr. Stark says to her.

“He is,” Arya replies.

“And Ramsay is facing an attempted first degree murder charge. It looks like his position needs to be filled,” Mr. Stark says.

Arya nods slowly.

“I’ve been reviewing your pieces and your coworkers’, and I’ve reached a decision.” Arya nods again and bites back a smile. He might not be offering the position to her. She has to remind herself of that. “I’d like to offer the position of being the _Stark Journal_ ’s head reporter, Arya.” Arya grins. “But, you have to publish your piece on the club. It was your best work, and I was disappointed--to say the least--when you decided against publishing it last month.”

Arya nods. “I understand.”

“You’re going to publish the piece?” Mr. Stark looks surprised, but Arya nods again and gives him a small smile.

“I promised that I would publish the article when the big men were put away.”

Mr. Stark smiles at her and stands to shake her hand. Arya stands as well. “Welcome to leading the team with me.”

* * *

_“ **Don’t Take the Money** _

_How the promise of cash lured hundreds of young adults into fighting for the entertainment of Tywin Lannister before his fall from grace..."_

Mr. Stark throws the newspaper down on her desk on Monday morning. Arya looks up. “We’ve passed our top number of sales for the first night’s release of the paper,” Mr. Stark says, beaming down at her.

“Like ever?” She asks, with an edge of disbelief in her voice.

Mr. Stark nods at her. “Ever.”

Arya’s face breaks into a grin and Bran gives her a thumbs up from his cubicle.

Mr. Stark leaves Arya’s cubicle and motions for her to follow him. “Attention, everyone,” he calls as he walks to the front of the office. Arya’s coworkers start to leave their cubicles and stare at Arya and Mr. Stark.

“We released our article on the club after several months of everyone’s hard work, especially our Arya’s.” Mr. Stark pats her shoulder. “And after breaking our personal sales record the same night that we released the paper, I think it’s time for a change in the office. Arya is going to be taking over Ramsay’s position of being our head of reporting.”

Bran whoops from his cubicle and Sansa claps loudly for her. Arya beams at everyone who cheers and claps her on the back.  

* * *

Arya steps into the elevator. She’s alone for the first moment of the day and she lets out a quiet cheer for herself and pumps her fist into the air. She breathes out a small laugh and smiles. Not only was she promoted to being her team’s head reporter, but her article broke the company’s record sales. She probably shouldn’t take complete credit for the sales, but she doubts Bran’s latest video game review or Sansa’s jean patching tutorial tipped the scale. She takes a deep breath when the elevator dings to indicate stopping on the ground floor. She leaves the elevator and starts to walk out of the office when a voice stops her.

“I read yer article,” Gendry says, slowly. She turns to look at him. He steps away from the receptionist and walks towards Arya. “I was getting ready to ask to go up. I wanted to talk to you in person.” Arya nods and starts walking again. Gendry follows her. They hadn’t spoken in person since his trial, but when they spoke, they definitely hadn’t brought up the damn article. “Ya write good,” he says when she steps out of the building.

“Thanks.”

“Lot of it wasn’t stuff I told ya.”

“I know,” Arya says, shortly. They were doing so well by slowly becoming friends, but she didn’t want him to have a reason to be mad at her again. And she didn’t want him to dwell on the article for too long either.

Arya keeps walking and Gendry walks beside her. Gendry stays silent for a moment. “I--I’m sorry that I didn’t believe you.” Arya bites back a smile. He made her wait weeks for his apology. He could wait a few minutes for her forgiveness. She doesn’t respond just yet. Gendry nods at her reaction. They turn around the street corner and towards Arya’s apartment building. “This’s fair, I s’pose,” Gendry sighs. Arya raises her eyebrow at him. “I just... I don't really trust people that well. And I thought that ya were someone I could trust and then… when ya weren't, I didn’t know what to do." Arya stops walking and turns to him.

"I am," she assures. "I never would have lied to you if I didn't have a job to do." Gendry nods again and stares at her.

“I believe ya,” he finally says. Arya smiles and takes a step forward. “How ‘bout we start over?” Gendry asks with a small smile.

“I’m okay with that,” she says, and they’re at the door to her building now.

“No more lies?”

“No more lies.”

"Can you swear on that?"

"Do you want to do a pinky promise?” Arya asks. “Are you ten?"

Gendry shrugs. "The collateral of a pinky promise is that if ya break it, ya have to cut off yer finger."

"I don't plan on losing any fingers,” Arya teases and offers her pinky to him.

"Good," he says and hooks her outstretched pinky.

"Good," she responds.

Arya stares into Gendry's bright eyes. She missed the small crinkle around his eyes when he smiled at her. He pulls on his hand, bringing Arya closer to him. She wants to kiss him, but she only just got him to open up to her again. She couldn't go around trying to kiss him, too.

He stares down at her and she takes a deep breath. Arya unhooks their fingers when Gendry reaches for her face and leans down. She feels his breath on her cheek. They just stand there for a moment, trying to decide it they were okay to do this or not. _Just fucking kiss me_ , she thinks.

Gendry presses his lips down to hers, and she thinks she could melt, right there, into him. She kisses him back, but when she slides her hands along his neck and he runs a hand down to her hip, she remembers that they are in the middle of the street at five o’clock on a Monday night.  Arya pulls away to catch her breath and scrambles to pull out the right key to get into her building. "I thought we were startin’ over," he teases.

"We don't have to start everything over," she says and finally pulls the right key out. “Do you wanna come up?” She asks. Gendry stares at her for a moment.

“Yeah,” he murmurs. Arya smiles and opens the door to get inside. She leads him into the elevator and for a moment, it’s empty aside for just the two of them and they kiss until it stops on the second floor and a mother and daughter step in. The elevator dings on the third floor and Arya grabs Gendry’s hand to pull him into her apartment. She had gotten her key out and ready to go while waiting in the elevator.

Arya shuts the door behind her, probably a little too hard and pulls her dress over her head. Gendry shrugs his jacket off and pulls her back into another kiss and Arya slips her hands under his shirt. She doesn’t expect him to take it off if he doesn’t want her to see his scars, but he tugs it over his head. She can feel him pressed against her stomach and she unhooks her bra and tosses it somewhere. He runs his thumb over one of her nipples and a shiver runs down her spine. She fumbles with the buckle on his jeans and pushes the zipper down. He pushes his shoes off, but stops her from pushing his jeans all the way off. “I don’ have a condom. D’ya got any?” he asks with a wince. Arya shakes her head a little.

“You’re still clean, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then just pull out.”

“Pull out?” He asks.

Arya nods. “Yeah. I have faith in you.”

“Alright.”

Arya watches the rise and fall of his chest and she moves her eyes down to his scars. The scabs were gone, but they were still an angry shade of pink and they were raised at least a centimeter on his body still. She doesn't know if they still hurt him. She looks back up to him. Arya kisses him and drags her fingers through his hair. “If I’m hurting you, I want you to tell me,” Arya says. Gendry smiles and shakes his head.

“Ya ain’t gonna hurt me any more than these did. They don’t even hurt that much, anymore,” he insists. Arya grabs his hand and pulls him into her bedroom. She flicks on the light and Gendry sits down on the edge of the mattress. She had clothes on her floor that she wishes she would’ve picked up this morning, but Gendry doesn’t seem to notice when he’s pushing his pants off and then tugging on her wrist to pull her into his lap after she kicks her underwear off.

“Are you good to sit up?” She asks.

"Thought ya liked me better on my back," he teases. Arya rolls her eyes at him, but waits for him to move back against the headboard before she straddles him. She didn't want to hurt him, and she knew that he would insist she wasn't even if she was.

He brushes his thumb over her clit and Arya leans down to kiss him again.

Arya sighs softly when she finally sinks over him and she’s sure the grip Gendry has on her hips is going to leave bruises. He hisses and Arya looks up at him. “Am I hurting you?”

Gendry breathes out a small laugh. “ _God_ , no,” he insists and nudges her cheek with his nose. She tilts her head and he covers her mouth with a kiss. Arya moves slow at first, and Gendry runs his hands over her hips, and she grabs the top of his headboard, not wanting to grab him too tightly. He grunts and pushes her hips down against him faster. Arya dips her head from his lips and kisses the stubble on his jaw. It scrapes her face and neck. Gendry trails his hand between her thighs and rubs his fingers over his clit and groans when she clenches around him.

She hisses when he pinches her clit between his fingers and she leans back up to kiss him. She catches his eyes and he mutters something. He breathes faster and Arya rocks her hips a little harder and he shuts his eyes. “Arya,” he mutters, squeezing his fingers into her hip and trying to rub her faster. He presses his lips to her neck and she can feel his heartbeat through chest before he has to pull her up. “Ah—fuck. Sorry,” he sighs. He comes after a stroke with his hand onto her stomach. He raises his head and knocks it against the headboard, closing his eyes. His face was already flushed, but it grew redder.

“It’s fine,” Arya assures and presses a soft kiss to his lips. She raises her hips and gets off of his lap. She stands and grabs a tissue. He watches her with a sad look on his face. “Are you embarrassed?” she teases.

Gendry lets out a dry laugh. “Whaddaya think? I feel like a high schooler,” he mutters and Arya gives him a small smile. He beckons her to him with his hand. “C’mere,” he says. Arya raises her eyebrows at him, but he pulls on her thigh. “C’mere.”

Arya kneels next to him on the bed and he slides his hand between her legs. Arya hums when he rubs his finger around her clit and she shifts to sit on her knees. She grabs his wrist and the headboard with her other hand. He grins at her and slips his finger inside her. She digs her nails into his forearm and he rubs his thumb over her clit. He slides his other hand up to rub her breast and Arya drops her forehead against his shoulder. He presses his lips to her head and she squeezes her eyes shut when he adds a second finger. She bites down lightly on his shoulder and he quickens the pace of his fingers. She tilts her hips up and moves her head to press a kiss to his mouth. She sighs his name into his mouth and he pinches her nipple. She grinds her hips against his hand and his touch gets more insistent. She pulls away from their kiss and lets out a soft cry when she comes.

She rests her head against his shoulder again and selfishly wishes he won’t move because he’s warm and she missed having his strong hands on her. He does, though, and she lets out a soft sigh. He tilts her chin up and gives her a soft kiss before he lies down on his back. She leans down and rests her head on his shoulder. Arya rubs her hand along his sweaty chest. It’s too hot to lay next to him, but she had missed him too much to move. Gendry rubs her back and presses his lips to her forehead. Arya smiles a little to herself and presses her hand to his stomach. They looked like they were healing well enough, but he would have thick scars on his stomach. "We match," Gendry murmurs. Arya smiles sadly and nods.

"We do," she says and gently traces one of the marks with her thumb. He doesn’t pull away from her touch or grimace. "Do they hurt anymore?"

Gendry shakes his head. "A little sometimes, but it’s nothing like it was."

“That’s good,” Arya says. He nods and stares at her ribcage.

"I didn't know that ya had a tattoo," Gendry says and slides his thumb over the markings.

Arya lifts her arm out of the way so he can see it better. "I've had it the whole time."

Gendry grins at her and rolls his eyes. "Well, I never saw it. It's hidden," he argues. It was a small word etched on her ribcage by her elbow. "Live," he whispers and looks back to her face. Arya nods a little. "What's it for?" Arya reaches for his hand.

"When I got these..." she brushes his fingers on her scars. "My doctor told me that I was lucky. I was given a second chance at life, and I didn't want to forget that, so I got the tattoo as soon as I healed." She explains. "But, it's not easy to forget that with _these_ ," she admits, motioning to her stomach.

He had avoided asking about them because Arya hadn't answered the first time he asked and he hadn’t asked again. Arya shifts off of him and props her head up on her hand. She bites her lip. She shuts her eyes and takes a deep breath. She opens her eyes to find him still staring at her.  “I’m going to tell you how I got them,” she says. Gendry nods and looks down at the scars. “When I was in high school, I was friends with these two college students. Jon was overseas for the Air Force and our grandma had custody of me after our parents…” Arya stops speaking for a moment. She didn’t really like to think about what happened when she lost her parents. Arya’s mother had been Jon’s stepmother and he left their home as soon as he turned eighteen. But when they’re parents died two years later, he couldn’t leave his station when he signed up for six years total. Arya moved in with their father’s mother.

“They died when I was sixteen and I had never really lost anyone before. I didn’t know how to handle it. And so I met this guy and his girlfriend and they were cool and they let me drink with them and I could forget for a little while what it was like to be me and to have lost my parents.

“But his girlfriend was jealous. I don’t know why, because Jaqen never made a pass at me, but she still didn’t trust me. I started not liking when I was alone with her or with him because she would interrogate us when she came back, but it was just so _easy_ to get drunk with them and not have to think about my mom and my dad. I don’t think I ever would’ve done it myself, but I just kept thinking about how easy it would’ve been to die and so when she threatened me I would just laugh it off and Jaqen would tell her to take it easy on me.”

Arya stops talking for a little while and she runs her hand along Gendry’s chest. He doesn’t prod her, and she is going to tell him, but she’s never told anyone besides Jon the story before and she just wants to take a break from it for a minute. Gendry squeezes her hand. She takes a deep breath and starts again. “And then one night, Jaqen kissed me because he didn’t believe that I had never been kissed before and she just lost it. I laughed and pushed him off because I knew he was just messing around, but she wasn’t laughing. She just stared at me for a while and I tried to brush it off, but then she grabbed her knife and I tried to push her off, but she got me and Jaqen just watched. I don’t know how long I had to fight with her. Finally, I was able to hit her back and shove her off.

“I ran from the field and I can’t remember how I decided to go there, but it was closer than the hospital and I couldn’t stop to find a payphone and call an ambulance because if I stopped, I don’t know that I would have been able to keep going. It was a small town and I knew where my theatre director lived so I made it to her house. She helped stop the bleeding and she called an ambulance for me, but she lived out by the fields too and it took so long for it to get there.

“That’s why I like living in the city. It seems more dangerous, but everything and everyone is closer together and it makes me feel safer. Jon gave me the switchblade that I carry around now after that and he got stationed in Chicago, so we moved here. I think she gets out sometime this year, but I can’t remember and I don’t want to know,” Arya sighs. “When she was getting sentenced and everything, Jaqen never said anything to me. It was like I only existed for a laugh and when she tried to kill me, I wasn’t funny anymore.”

Gendry breathes in softly and squeezes her hand again. “Arya,” he whispers and she wants him to say something else, but she doesn’t know what. He reaches around her waist and pulls her back to him to presses his face into her neck. “Arya.”

She thinks that he doesn’t want to say the wrong thing, and he just rubs his hand on her back and Arya thinks that maybe this is better. He doesn’t have to say anything. She doesn’t need him to.

* * *

Arya gets a call from Sheriff Seaworth later that night. “Legally, I can’t call and tell ya what happened to the rest of them at court today, but the records we have here are public knowledge if you’d like to look at them.” Arya smiles and her and Gendry pay a visit to the station. Jon gives them cups of coffee and lets them look through the files alone. She pulls the Mountain’s first.

Even though all of the fights were consented to in the papers, the Mountain is charged for the voluntary manslaughter of Oberyn Martell with a six year sentence, but because he disposed of Oberyn’s body, he has to serve eighteen more years for tampering with evidence. She flips the page and he is also charged with first degree rape with a fifteen year sentence.

Arya shows the file to Gendry and he hands her Roose’s file.

“Attempted first degree murder. Nine years,” she reads aloud to him.

Gendry gives her a small shrug. “Better than nothin’,” he mumbles and reads Ramsay’s file.

“Attempted first degree murder. Nine years. Tampering with evidence. Eighteen years.”

Arya picks up Locke’s file. “Attempted first degree murder. Nine years. Tampering with evidence. Eighteen years.” Arya puts the papers back in the files and back into the filing cabinet. She stands slowly and Gendry pushes himself up to stand. He wraps her into a hug so tight it's a wonder that she can still breathe. 

"Thank you," he murmurs into her hair. "Thank you."

* * *

"Damn, Gendry, why didn't you ask Hot Pie for a job?" Arya teases him at the diner. She dips one of her fries in ketchup and smirks at him. "You would've looked so cute in that little blue dress."

"I don't think any of our extras would've fit," Shireen laughs and pinches Gendry's cheek. He squirms away from her and bats her hand away. 

"It's his football player shoulders," Arya says and Shireen nods. 

"I don't think he could be a waitress. He's too sullen to get any tips."

"I wouldn' make a good wait _ress_ 'cause I'm a guy, Shireen." Shireen makes a face and rolls her eyes at him. 

"Never noticed," she quips and smacks his shoulder before she walks back into the kitchen. Arya smiles at Gendry. 

"I don't want you to be a waitress. I'm far too attached to that leather jacket of yours," she says. 

Gendry shakes his head. "Ya don' gotta worry 'bout it," he promises with his wide grin and bright eyes. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much to everyone who read, kudosed, and commented on this story! it means the world to me that all of you took the time to read this, stuck through some of the slow/sad parts, and to make it to the end with me! this entire story originally stemmed from just one line that i thought of one morning while i was listening to "message man" by twenty-one pilots and neither the line nor the song made it into the final story haha but that to me is so cool that i turned that sentence into an entire story that so many of you have told me that you loved! this is my favorite story and i'm so lucky that i was able to share it with all of you! ❤️❤️ ((also the first full scene i wrote that made it into the final story was the button down scene from chapter four and i have no regrets))

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [fight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19182748) by [Newaged_skulls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Newaged_skulls/pseuds/Newaged_skulls)
  * [fight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19182748) by [Newaged_skulls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Newaged_skulls/pseuds/Newaged_skulls)




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